Why is There Consciousness?

I read a thought-provoking question many years ago that Carl Jung posed in one of his books (though right now I can’t recall which of one). Jung said that the ultimate question is not whether there is a God but what the purpose of consciousness is. I have come back to that question often to ponder just how profound it is. Whether or not God exists, the fact that we humans (as well as other living creatures), which are but compilations of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and various other chemicals, are conscious is absolutely astounding. It might even be all the more so if there is no God.

For Jung, God was a given. The nature of God, however, was the great mystery. Jung said that God was part of us and could be experienced through our psyches. God was in our unconscious and was the foundation of our being and the source from which our consciousness sprung. This proposition resonates for me. The idea of God as the white-bearded man sitting at the pearly gates of Heaven, prepared to dole out rewards for a life well lived and eternal damnation for a life not so well lived, has always seemed extremely short-sighted to me. Jung’s suggestion opens up the possibility that if there is a God, he might just need us as much as we need him. He might need us to be aware of ourselves so that he can experience each aspect of himself, splintered off and manifest as billions and billions of life forms. Perhaps God is so incomprehensible, unrecognizable, and ultimately indefinable that he must anthromorphize in order to begin to know himself, but again that devolves to the poetic and seeks to make God understandable to the human mind, which has been the shortcoming of most religions. This tangent does not bring us closer to any solid answers about what the literal purpose of consciousness is.

So what has science taught us about the purpose of consciousness? Quantum mechanics is the new scientific frontier that is exploring this very question. Quantum mechanics, which turns classical physics upside down at the subatomic level, has brought our traditional scientific understandings into question. In a nutshell, the smallest particles—subatomic particles—do not follow the classical rules of physics that Isaac Newton and the other power house scientists of the past laid down. Quantum mechanics defies logic. For instance, at the subatomic level, a particle can be simultaneously a wave and a particle (a fixed point). The scientist, the observer, affects the outcome of experiments to measure the particle by collapsing the wave function so the position of the particle can be measured. Without the observer, however, the position of the particle exists only as a probability, not a fixed point. Other bizarre quantum mechanics theories include these mind-boggling propositions: (1) Particles that were once entangled in some way and then separated continue to influence one another no matter the distance between them. Einstein derisively called this “spooky action at a distance” and tried to find an alternate explanation for the phenomenon. (2) At the subatomic level, time, space, and matter disappear.

Quantum mechanics has many philosophical implications. Some religious and mystical individuals have used it to argue that consciousness is the basis for all that exists. In other words, consciousness begat matter, not the other way around. However, many scientists, including Einstein himself (who, ironically, helped discover many theories about the quantum world), were dissatisfied with quantum mechanics. Einstein famously said that “God does not play dice with the universe.” Einstein believed that that the universe operates on concrete principles not probabilities and that quantum theory was incomplete.

If you’re left scratching your head after trying to figure out quantum mechanics, you’re not alone. Not even scientists have a complete understanding of how the quantum world operates or the implications of quantum theories. Indeed, I now have even more questions that are unanswered, including: 1) If there is no point, why did matter not continue for all eternity without an awareness of itself?  2) Or even if consciousness developed, why did it develop beyond the amoebic recognition of food and danger? 3) What is the evolutionary significance of consciousness? The questions about consciousness could stretch to infinity. Suffice it to say that the very awareness of ourselves presents us with a grand conundrum.

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Passage from Diane Ackerman and Carl Jung that Address this Question

Consciousness, the great poem of matter, seems so unlikely, so impossible, and yet here we are with our loneliness and our giant dreams.

Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Random House, 1990), 130.

Our age has shifted all emphasis to the here and now, and thus brought about a daemonization of man and his world. The phenomenon of dictators and all the misery they have wrought springs from the fact that man has been robbed of transcendence by the shortsightedness of the super-intellectuals. Like them, he has fallen a victim to unconsciousness. But man’s task is the exact opposite: to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. Neither should he persist in his unconsciousness, nor remain identical with the unconscious elements of his being, thus evading his destiny, which is to create more and more consciousness. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.

Jung, Carl. Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Random House, 1963), 326.

Have a Look at My Other Similar Articles that Ask Hard Questions

Why Is There Anything But Nothing?

What Is the Purpose of Suffering?

Is It Possible to Believe in Any Religion As the Literal Truth?

About Me

Books are my “church” in that they help to satisfy my need to explore the mystery of life. At their best, words keep pace with the questions of life, honoring their depth and sincerity, without giving pat, flat answers.

I consider myself a mystical agnostic. This is a term that I am borrowing from Karen Armstrong’s fascinating book A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I have struggled with the hard questions and come to the conclusion that agnosticism is the only truly authentic position I can claim. I do not “know” the answers to the grand mysteries of life. The mystical component describes my intense interest in religions, spirituality, and mysticism as a path to experience the spirituality latent in the self.

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