CBC #2 Reber's Q/A - Student's Resource, transcript of highlights.

 Prof. Reber's insightful Cellular Basis of Consciousness presents a key understanding regarding the actual physical facts surrounding the origins of our human consciousness.  Metaphysics-enthusiasts will sniff & resent & ignore til the cows come home.  Still, here it is.  The answers are in Evolution!   

If you "believe" in Science., you'll want to learn about Prof Reber's suggestions.

Professor Arthur Reber's Question and Answer Session

The “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)”

Reber’s 2018, Institut des sciences cognitives - UQAM presentation.

{Part one, visit The "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" proposal - A Student's Introduction to Dr. Arthur Reber's CBC}

A challenging audience, Professor Arthur Reber rises to the occasion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m posting this transcript of highlights from Professor Reber's talk, because I’m stunned at how little attention Reber’s "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" conception has received since Reber started sharing this with the academic community over seven years ago. 

I believe the profoundly insightful Cellular Basis of Consciousness holds the key to understanding the actual physical facts regarding the source of our human consciousness.  

The "Cellular Basis of Consciousness" - A Student's Introduction to Dr. Arthur Reber's CBC

Recently I finished listening to Nick Lane’s “Transformer,” with its significant molecular and mitochondrial insights, and its superb epilogue titled “Self.”  Then, someone at medium.com suggested Arthur Reber, and I was amazed by Dr. Reber's 2018 presentation at Institut des sciences cognitives – UQAM. It seems to me to dovetail with Professor Lane's exposition and it feels to me like I've found the last major missing piece of the puzzle that I've been putting together for myself.

An Introduction to Dr Reber's thoughts: 

The “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)”

Reber’s 2018, Institut des sciences cognitives - UQAM presentation.

Where, Nick Lane took me down into our physiology and beyond—into chemistry, then into physics, and the Kreb’s cycle—before bringing it around to mitochondria and some mind-blowing new insights. Finishing with an elegant, most informed deconstruction of the so-called Hard Problem.

Arthur Reber took me back into deep time, origins, and to first functional cells. 

Why did only one type of genetic structure succeed, out of what must have been bazillions of reactions over three billion years? Reber’s “Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC)” points the way to where to look for answers.  I find it is consilient with the treasure trove of scientific information I’ve already accumulated. It’s harmonious with my perceptions as a lifelong deep time Evolution enthusiast. Then Reber finished with an impassioned, spot-on deconstruction, and a resolution, to Philosophy’s misguided meta-physical “Hard Problem”—What’s not to love, I ask?

How we formulate our questions often says more about our own expectations, than about the topic.

I want to state that I believe Arthur Reber’s (who died a couple months ago) presentation deserves to be in the public domain and receive a hell of a lot more exposure than it has received!

Is it Folly Searching for Mind Within the Brain?

 Let me lay out the chain of reasoning that drives this challenge.

It starts with accepting the reality of this physically evolving Earth around me. I know I’m not imaginative enough to conjure up this vision of the miracle planet I live on. Seems to me, it has to be one or the other. If it’s real, it goes back billions of years, and evolution actually happened one day at a time.

Once that’s out of the way, the rest ought to be easy. Evolution, that is — change over time. First Earth, geology, and chemistry, working together with time — lots of time.

Then geology and chemistry figured out how to harness electricity, via the Krebs cycle and such.

I believe it’s honest to suggest this is the birth of biology. By and by, chemistry, geology, and biology created ever more complex “electrified” molecular components — that is, molecular biology — eventually figuring out how to colonize themselves. Up to here, it’s all pretty much spontaneous electro-magnetic interactions.

Considering Steven Gambardella's, "Spinoza, God, and You"

 

I read Steven Gambardella’s interesting article Spinoza, God, and You and found it very engaging. I made a few comments and figured it was enough. But thinking on it all day, I still want to write about a key element that I feel keeps getting left out of such discussions about God and consciousness.

Spinoza, God, and You

Steven Gambardella - Oct 14, 2025

Gambardella's article begins with:

(SG)  The morning is a symphony of small things — the rumble of the kettle, the diminuendo of a passing car, a shard of sunlight across the worktop. Outside the breeze catches a dewy web, the spider tremors. An odd thought occurs — what if none of these things are really separate?

What if the kettle and the car, the spider and the heart beating in your chest aren’t items laid out on the counter of the world, but kinks in a single fabric? Spinoza the most ambitious claim a philosopher can make — there is only one thing. And that one thing is everything.

Wow, talk about getting smacked across the face. Good morning, wake up and smell the coffee!

But, but, I believe in Evolution! I understand a good deal about the astounding pageant that has brought us to this point in history. The one-ness of my existence with the All out there - it is a reality, once appreciated, it can't be escaped.  So give me a moment to clear my head before continuing with what promises to be a fascinating article.

First, to clarify - I am an individual evolved biological animal (an Earthling), with some 600 million years of successfully evolving generations under my belt. One thing that means, is that I appreciate that my biological body has layers of insights and agendas well beyond my awareness.  {It sets up an odd sort of partnership situation between my mind and my body.  Difficult to convey, but oh so real.}

My thoughts & mind ( the "conscious" part of me) are an internal reflection of my biological body (the physical part of me) dealing with the rush of physical reality coming at me, interior and exterior.  (Physical science, [as opposed to philosophy/theology], supports this supposition. For details see, Solms, Damasio, Sapolsky, Sloan-Wilson, etc),

I'm not unique, one of billions. 

Yet my mind and my life's journey is unique. 

And it is mine, same as it ever was. 

And that's about all I can know with certainty, 

based on a life time of absorbing the developing scientific evidence and understanding.  It's fractals all the way down.

Okay now that I have that out of my system, on to the rest of Gambardella’s story . . .

(¶10)  (SG)  “Here we meet Spinoza’s definition of God: “By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite.” (Ethics 1.6)

Not a bearded man in the sky, nor a hidden engineer — “absolutely infinite” means nothing stands outside or alongside God. God is — surely — all powerful, all knowing, so therefore must be all present.

If there were a second thing, God would not be all. Spinoza argues that outside God “no substance can be or be conceived” — that is, there cannot be two ultimate stuffs. There is only one — and “whatever exists is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God.”

In Spinoza’s phrase, Deus sive Natura — “God or Nature” — are not two names for two things but two names for one. You can say “Nature” if “God” gets stuck in your throat, or say “God” if “Nature” feels thin. (Or, the Universe)”  

That works for me.  God permeating everything and beyond our understanding.  With us humans as the most spectacular, if oh so flawed and destructive, manifestation of Time and Earth's evolutionary drive.

Ethan Siegel, there is physics, and there is Earth.

Also published at Medium.com.  Come on down for some discussion.

Earthrise  (wiki)

On May 21st, Ethan Siegel published an article titled with a question, a challenge. “Does physics truly have anything to say about consciousness?”

I want to offer a qualified loud and clear no!

Physics is about physics. Physics operates under exacting natural laws, that we can track via mathematics.

Where is there any need for a choice when puzzling over a differential equation? It’s all about following rules and where they take us.

Beyond physics?

What could be beyond physics you ask?

Think about it, … there is physics and there is Earth !

What’s so special about Earth? Stop to ponder your response.

Here’s mine,

Behold Earth, where: Chemistry + geology + harnessing electricity + deep time = biology > Life > creatures > complex creatures > self-reflecting minds.

Zoom image will be displayed

Mother Earth

Professor Massimo Pigliucci asks: “What Hard Problem?”

 

I also published this at medium.com, July 8, 2025

Recently I published a short article at Medium.org questioning David Chalmers’ so-called hard problem of consciousness and a commenter took me to task.

Unfortunately he chose not to engage with my response, which is what usually happens. The heart of his complaint reads:

HS commented: “…But an organism still has to utilize the equipment available in its universe and how molecules or physical forces create consciousness is not explained just because, for example, a neuron has come to be.

Get it? It is still a hard problem. There has to be something inherent to that universe with the potential to create consciousness. …”

No. I don’t get it.

The universe is about as distal from down to Earth reality, as we can get. For me, the really hard problem is why does this sort of philosophizing get away with ignoring the realities of our evolutionary biological origins down here on Earth?

So, in an attempt to better clarify my previous article. I want to share from Professor Massimo Pigliucci’s short essay (©2013) in philosophynow.org. The essay asks: “What Hard Problem?” — and I believe it provides a perfect vehicle for constructively pushing back.

Airing-out David Chalmers Problem.

I also published this at medium.com, July 2, 2025

I come at these deep questions about human consciousness and origins from a biological bottom-up, evolutionary perspective.

One that, I believe, receives way too little attention. Especially in light of the past couple decades of amazing biological breakthroughs in understanding further layers of detail within our body/brain’s folds within folds of harmonic, cumulative, complexity.

From my Earth Centrist perspective Chalmers’ words personify human hubris and a curious tendency to expect Nature to prove itself to us.  Evolution has plenty to teach us about consciousness, why turn the philosophical cold shoulder to it?

As for me, my goal has been a graspable down to Earth understanding of mind, along with who I am, based on solid biology, evolutionary, scientific understanding along with a healthy appreciation for my animal nature and the Human Mind ~ Physical Reality divide.

Here I share representative quotes from David Chalmers and reflect on the blindspots. Then I invite critique and discussion. This is about a learning.

From: The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory ― David J. Chalmers

Chalmers: “There is nothing we know about more directly than consciousness, but it is far from clear how to reconcile it with everything else we know.

Why does (consciousness) exist?"

From within a biological bottom-up, evolutionary perspective, levels of consciousness exist because creatures had to differentiate between inside and outside; Creatures needed to develop ways to find and absorb good things; then to lock out bad things; and also to excrete bad things; while keeping good things within.

Learning how to recognize and maintain dynamic balance has been a life or death challenge since the beginnings of life itself.

Some form of internal awareness~consciousness has been a prerequisite for survival since the dawn of complex single cells — even more, as complex organisms evolved.