Considering Things Science Can Explain About Consciousness.

"Without deeply, personally appreciating the Pageant of Evolution, trying to ask, and answer, these deep existential questions is like playing basketball in zero gravity."

"Dr. Mark Solms makes it clear: … Modern science shows us that our mind is best understood as “a reflection of your body communicating with itself.” "

"Consider that momentous invention some four billion years ago of the Krebs cycle. Here on Earth, when geology and chemistry learned how to harness electricity, thereby giving birth to this Krebs cycle, which in turn gave birth to biology. There you’ll find the difference between a rock and living creature." 

Introduction

Dr. Nick Lane Considers the Source of Consciousness.

 

(I'm happy to report that I have exchanged emails with professor Nick Lane, and he gives me a supportive thumbs up for this effort.)

Here Dr. Nick Lane describes the source; where the metaphorical spark; that starts the cascade; that makes us, us; is to be found.

I share extensive quotes from Dr. Nick Lane’s recent book Transformer, specifically its epilogue, “Self” — which seems to me the best, most up to date, street level summary of current scientific understanding regarding our physical body, as the ultimate source of our thoughts and feelings, in short our mind & soul.

Why do I believe this is important? Because, Evolution and biological realities receive too much hollow lip service, and too little detailed attention.  Philosophers tend to keep it within the bubble of their thoughts.  Seemingly valuing dialogue more than getting into the weeds of evolutionary biology to find out what nature & evolution has to teach us about the source of consciousness.

What follows is offered as food for thought.  An invitation to explore Nick Lane’s report.  To gain a deeper understanding of how the interaction between body, brain, and life itself gives rise to our consciousness — and while all the details aren’t filled in, an internally consistent outline is becoming clear enough — backed by the consilience of scientific evidence.  We should start taking it seriously.

As Dr. Solms points out elsewhere: the best way to understand consciousness is, as a reflection of our body/brain communicating with itself.   This is my puny challenge to philosophy departments to take notice, and start formulating better, more relevant questions regarding our human condition.

_________________

Professor Nick Lane PhD writes in his epilogue to the book “Transformer”

I claim fair use, to justify this reprinting and sharing

¶1  “ ‘I think therefore I am’ said Descartes, in one of the most celebrated lines ever written. But what am I, exactly? … What is a quantum of solace?”

¶2  “In this book, we’ve explored the dynamic side of biochemistry, the continuous flow of energy and matter that makes us alive. …”

Striving to Understand Consciousness. (with a little help from Nick Lane)

Exploring how science is unraveling philosophy’s eccentric Hard Problem, with some help from Professor Nick Lane. 

David Chalmers leads philosophers who claim scientists, (that is people dedicated to studying physical reality), will never figure out how biological processes can produce subjective experience without adapting some woo.

Then they go on to talk about studying “consciousness” by focusing on neurons and the brain. While the body gets lost like some kind of externality, an irrelevance to minimize and avoid.

Now please consider for a moment, your brain is intimately connected down to every cubic millimeter of your body. Your living body is about a nonstop exchange of information and resources between itself and the outside world. (Same as all other animals, down to single celled creatures.)

It is your body that experiences the bike ride, it is your mouth, nose, fingers, etc. who are experiencing the food being eaten, same with the child or lover being touched — it is not your brain.

Everything your brain has to work with, must be processed and communicated via our individual living body, (with its unique perceptual filters — product of nature via nurture.)

Nick Lane uses the metaphor of our body’s biology and organs, as a full set of orchestra instruments, the physical biology scientists have been studying. Nick suggests it’s time to listen to the music they make. The bioelectrical rhythms and fluctuating fields that convey what those biological instruments are performing.

The brain? That’s the conductor, and the music that’s the thoughts and feeling surging through our bodies. At the end of this article I’ve added a 266 word quote from Dr. Lane, who does a superb job of conveying the concept.

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.