The Origin of Consciousness

In the movie Star Wars, at every crucial moment the hero hears the voice of his master, who has already passed away. “Luke, trust the Force.” And then the hero casts off his confusion and follows the teaching of the voice. And he saves the galaxy. It is nothing more than a story in a movie, but if we look at it with fresh eyes, it isn’t quite so simple. The voice the hero hears is an auditory hallucination, and the dead master appearing as a Jedi spirit is a visual hallucination. This does not change even though it is dressed up in the splendid premise of a seeker who wields a lightsaber. Hearing voices, seeing visions, and being unable to refuse the directives of those voices and visions—by the dominant standards of the modern world, this falls within the domain of mental illness.

If not, then it falls within the domain of religion. Auditory and visual hallucinations (visions) are commonly called miracles in religious circles. Whether this phenomenon is truly a miracle or not is not something I can argue about. In any case, religious experience is an extremely intimate personal experience, one that is hard to speak about openly to the general public. The reason it is treated this way is that it is not accepted by the cultural mainstream. Yet most people experience auditory hallucinations. Many children talk with imaginary friends. As it happens, far away in Britain, there exists Jediism, whose followers heed the teaching of the “Force”—that mysterious power introduced in Star Wars.

To treat all of this as a pathological phenomenon is the folly and arrogance of modern science. It is a familiar pattern, not the mainstream but the rejected, one that is endlessly varied across all living species. But since when has the mainstream been the mainstream? If, as this book argues, consciousness is a cultural invention, then at least when it comes to the question of the cultural mainstream, its cycle of turnover does not seem all that ponderous. This is all the more true the more complex the world becomes, and the stronger the longing for certainty grows in reaction to it. Science—the kind of religion that dominates the modern mind—is itself a product of this longing.

This series of changes is a phenomenon. To turn one’s eyes away from a phenomenon is merely escapism. The starting point for not only accepting a phenomenon but also giving birth to the insight that pierces through it is “seeing with fresh eyes.” For anyone who truly harbors a powerful longing for certainty, I believe this book will serve as a good example of “seeing with fresh eyes”—regardless of whether its arguments are right or wrong.

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