Prologue

I distinctly remember when my consciousness stirred and began its slow and winding ascent ‎path up – the arduous path of becoming acquainted with my unique self. Words cannot ‎describe the face that stared back at me from the mirror that day, but decades later, the ‎feeling seared into me remains vivid. It was far stronger than the hundreds of guests that ‎gathered in my honor the night before, celebrating my coming of age. Were it not for the ‎photos, I doubt the celebration would have registered in my conscious memory. But a few ‎words from a girl managed to penetrate the darkness of my consciousness and stir it. ‎
Growing up, close relatives customarily spent the days preceding the Bar Mitzvah with the ‎family, prolonging the celebration. We loved these seemingly endless festivities. It was a ‎great opportunity to bond and spend meaningful time with our cousins. It was the day after ‎my Bar Mitzvah. The adults were having their lunch while the rest of us played outside. My ‎cousin, a girl my age, turned to me and said that she hoped to be lucky enough to be with ‎someone with eyes as light as mine. In a single moment, one girl’s offhand comment ‎awakened my premature consciousness of self from its infantile phase.‎
I was mortified. It was supposed to compliment my eyes, whose color shifted from green to ‎grey. But the words rattled me, perhaps because no one had noticed my eyes’ color before. It ‎pained me to realize that until that moment, I was completely unaware of their color. ‎Looking in the mirror later that day, I still could not distinguish the light shade she attributed ‎to them. The words were flattering, to be sure, but the sensation was oppressive;  until that ‎point, I did not associate my self with my appearance. The physiological aspect of the inner ‎self suddenly dawned on me. In those moments, I mournfully imagined what a dark-skinned ‎child surrounded by light-skinned people might feel when someone first comments on the ‎color of their skin. I felt sorrow. It was an awakening experience of my personal self that left ‎its mark on my young identity and consciousness.‎
I have since accumulated other jolting experiences, each adding to my unique perception of ‎my personal self. Time and again, I discovered how others see or perceive me – close and ‎distant, for better or worse. These perceptions constantly expand or condense my experience ‎of self, wandering somewhere within my awakening state of inner self. ‎
‎***‎
Rivers of ink have been poured into writing about the ME ‎ in the perception of self over the ‎ages, hoping to define and place it. For a while, most philosophers believed that it resides in ‎the heart; others thought it lies in the kidneys or the gut; now, it is said to rest in the crown ‎of the head possibly. But perhaps it dwells in the noosphere‎ ‎ – the aura of consciousness that ‎shines over the earth ‎ – or perhaps in the soul that envelops the body or courses through it. ‎To this day, a decisive conclusion has not been reached. Therefore, time and time again and ‎in fascinating waves, philosophers’ interest in this enigma and related existential issues rears ‎its head. ‎
Research thus far has utilized abstract analytical tools that cast more shadow than light on ‎the issue. Yet it seems that, in the early 21st  century, many are again engaging in this matter. ‎For thousands of years, the study of consciousness has been limited to philosophers, ‎theologians, or psychologists. Nowadays, physicists, chemists, biologists and technologists ‎have joined in on their quest. Something seems to be stirring in the ever-grinding human ‎mind, and another expansion of the experience of consciousness is set to occur, dissipating ‎some of the heavy fog of the complex reality that shrouds the Me, propelling humankind ‎towards another stage in its evolution and cosmic journey. ‎
With this book, I wish to distinguish between one’s consciousness and how one experiences ‎it. I hope to understand the changes the experience of consciousness have undergone over ‎the years, see how they manifested, and assess the direction in which they will continue to ‎develop over the 21st  century.‎
A discussion of consciousness is inherently multifaceted: Some are concerned with defining ‎its characteristics or the ways it perceives itself or is perceived by others; some focus on how ‎consciousness experiences the world around it; others immerse themselves in the experience ‎of an individual undergoing the awakening of their consciousness, something we call the ‎Qualia of consciousness. The term pinpoints subjective sensations at different states of ‎consciousness – for instance, enduring a headache, tasting wine, standing on the beach and ‎being mesmerized by the turquoise beauty of the water, or the serenity that comes with ‎smelling a beautiful flower. Qualia indicates the quality of one’s experience of reality, in ‎contrast to a description of reality as-is or as it is believed to be. It describes the experience ‎of reality of one being conscious of oneself while perceiving reality. ‎
Before I detail the experience of consciousness as it has been perceived throughout the ‎years, let me share with you the parable of the princess in the turret. It may demonstrate just ‎the breadth of consciousness and its experience and illustrate humankind’s challenges in ‎further clarifying them. ‎
The Princess in the Turret
Consciousness can be likened to a beautiful, radiant, pure, and extraordinary princess, ‎doomed to forever occupy a dark turret (the dark, damp crown of the head) atop a high tower ‎‎(the skull atop the human body) in a thick and terrifying forest riddled with prowling wild ‎animals (a complex, danger-filled everyday environment). This princess has no memory of ‎her birth or who placed her in the darkness of the turret, behind lock and key. She barely ‎recalls flashes of her childhood, in which she sees herself withdrawn, not understanding that ‎some stranger has sentenced her to a life of imprisonment. ‎
The days pass, and the princess discovers various cracks in the walls of her prison tower, ‎through which she can peek and glean the world outside. She becomes aware of the lush ‎growth below and sees the life-rustling forest, teeming with creatures similar or wholly ‎different from her. In the distance, she can see other towers and turrets in different colors, ‎occupied by other shadowy figures. She sees people walking back and forth between the ‎forest and the tower that bears her turret. At first, she does not understand what they are ‎doing. Slowly, the roles they play become clearer. She realizes that some work for her ‎benefit while others wish her ill. She comes to believe that she is the center of the universe, ‎that all was made for her sake, and struggles to accept that the world also belongs to others.‎
As she matures, she learns and comprehends the rules by which these outsiders operate to ‎cater to her needs, but mainly to love and appreciate her. She tries her hardest to act ‎accordingly. Years pass before she realizes she is trapped in a high turret, far from the many ‎things outside it. While uncovering this painful truth, she uses clues to help her discover ‎whence she came and why she was imprisoned. ‎
Eventually, she learns that the cracks through which she attempts to comprehend the world ‎outside her turret can be expanded and turned into windows of varying sizes and angles. She ‎can do so with the help of symbols  – letters and numbers that offer her a better view of the ‎events around her, or at least familiarity with what others have seen through the cracks of ‎their turrets. ‎
She finds ways to make her turret move about in the space revealed before her. She begins ‎with the utmost caution: dangers lurk at every turn. By chance, she makes the most ‎significant discovery of her journey of adulthood when other turrets around her point at her ‎turret and describe its size, shape, and the color of its bricks. ‎
She begins to understand that the world above and below her turret is much broader and ‎more elaborate than her younger self could have imagined. As she matures and hypothesizes ‎about her origin and future, the windows of her turret become too small to sate her curiosity. ‎She believes that if she can find new ways to extend her view beyond the turret, she could ‎find better answers to questions about her origin and purpose. Using the materials at her ‎disposal, she develops tools that she hopes will tear down the screens enshrouding and ‎surrounding the turret. She creates glasses that bring things near and far into view. She ‎develops tools that measure puzzling phenomena and hopes the data and mathematical ‎models will illuminate their essence. She understands that these rules dictate her ‎comprehension of reality at her feet and dreams of the day when she can unlock her turret, ‎break free, and see the outside world as it truly is. ‎
With time, she begins to understand that to free herself from her prison and see farther, she ‎must observe herself and not focus solely on abstract questions of identity and origins. She ‎begins to suspect that her body is the ultimate tool for understanding the world around her. ‎Hesitantly, using different methods, she questions its shape, characteristics, and how it ‎develops. She summons the courage to enhance her body’s physical and cognitive ‎capabilities and, in the process, discovers fantastic worlds around her.‎
Make no mistake – even though this princess broke free from the turret on the ground and ‎now soars upwards in aircraft, she merely exchanged her prison tower with a capsule ‎traveling through space or the subatomic and quantum worlds. Today, she is a scientist and ‎an astronaut yielding powerful tools with which she travels far off into the vacuum of space ‎and sheds light on distant galaxies; nevertheless, she is still a prisoner, aspiring to tear down ‎the screens covering the walls of the capsule in which she travels, in order to grasp the ‎reality around her.‎
Lately, she has begun to develop new tools to turn the spotlight inwards into the very ‎capsule she inhabits. In this manner, she hopes to understand better who she is, where she ‎came from, how she survives in her dark capsule prison, and most of all, how to leave it. She ‎believes that the more she extends her knowledge of herself, the better she will understand ‎the physical and temporal context of the universe.‎
This is the stage at which she is today, and she will soon reap some of its fruits. She will ‎understand something new about her essence to shed light on her prison and help her ‎traverse the obstacle course, expand her sphere of existence, and liberate herself. She is ‎about to experience her existence in a new way, which will help her rally her surroundings to ‎her benefit as she sets course on a new, arduous path through time and space. This next ‎phase is not the stage of artificial intelligence commanding humankind’s consciousness of ‎self, as many tend to prophesize, for better or worse. ‎
‎***‎
Remember, over the thousands of years in which consciousness has been coming to terms ‎with itself, it has consistently broken through the confines dictated by the physiological ‎condition of the self. The consciousness of the self has never taken for granted the ‎constraints of its turret; instead, it always aspired to extend the limits of its tangible ‎existence. ‎
At first, and for a long while, humankind operated in the sphere at the foot of the tower, ‎satisfying the material needs of itself and its cohorts. Humans traversed vast distances on ‎foot to gather plants and chase down animals to fuel their continued physical existence. They ‎understood the limits of their feet, and it was only a matter of time before they discovered ‎that movement could be expedited with the help of a round, rolling stone that could take ‎them from place to place faster than legs ever could. ‎
This initial epiphany must have come with great dread of the dangers of rapid movement. ‎We can only presume that in the early days of the wheel, many people fell and broke a limb ‎or two in an attempt to improve its structure, speed, and safety. The same holds true for ‎every stage of humanity’s physical and cognitive development. ‎
From the moment we realized the conditions of our existence could be expanded, humankind ‎has been hurriedly enhancing anything that stood in its path. We began seeking ways to shed ‎our physiological confines. First, we domesticated strong animals to carry things for us. ‎Then, we domesticated animals that could transport us faster than that first wheel could. ‎Before long, we developed artificial wings to carry us across the oceans, high above the ‎clouds. Within a few decades, we began using rockets to cross the atmosphere and reach the ‎moon. Since then, our tools have been serving us faithfully on land, in the depths of the ‎oceans, and in the far reaches of the solar system – away from our physical bodies.‎
In the 19th  century, humans began developing tools that mimic their senses. In 1826, French ‎inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce developed the very first camera. In 1877, Thomas Edison ‎developed the first phonograph. Then, in the 20th  century, we learned that we could surpass ‎the limits of our cognitive capabilities. In 1945, based on ideas penned a  century earlier by ‎Charles Babbage, the first computer (ENIAC) was born. Computers have grown incredibly ‎elaborate, mimicking our memory, processing, analysis, organization, and transmission ‎skills, allowing us to present and enhance endless quantities of texts, sounds, and footage. ‎We named this capability Artificial Intelligence. Indeed, after several decades of intensive ‎labor, success finally came in 2022 with the introduction of public-use tools such as ‎ChatGPT that generate texts, images, and videos according to detailed written prompts. ‎
The human world has since been in turmoil. Some call to stop the development of these ‎tools; some panic and lament human civilization as we know it; some are thrilled with the ‎power of these tools to generate organized and detailed artificial (although not always ‎precise) human intelligence. This is beyond the scope of this text. We must, however, bear ‎this in mind: Humanity has always been using its tools to mimic and enhance its physical ‎and cognitive capabilities.‎
Although hardly negligible, that is not what sets us apart from other beings. We have always ‎been surrounded by more robust, faster, and even some intelligent animals. As far as we ‎know, humans are superior to animals because of our ability to ‘know that we know.’ The ‎conscious self can measure the credibility of its knowledge and identify its absence. In other ‎words, humans are possibly the only animals on earth to be conscious of their existence, or ‎more precisely, the only beings whose existential consciousness develops as they mature. ‎This is our main distinction.‎
The ultimate stage of humankind’s evolution will not be the ability to replicate, mimic, or ‎develop faster, better, or more expansive intelligence than our intellectual biological ‎capabilities. If there is an ultimate stage, we are only beginning to tackle it. The ultimate ‎phase is the expansion and enhancement of our consciousness of the long-awakened self that ‎has always come second to our more urgent needs. Now that we have achieved tools that ‎handsomely mimic and enhance our physical and cognitive skills, we will likely turn our ‎attention to what truly makes us unique. Our consciousness is an enigma that many ‎philosophers have busied themselves with for thousands of years but has been pushed aside ‎in favor of more urgent matters. Now, it stands front and center, and the insights that will be ‎arrived at will shock our existence far more than AI did. After generations of effort, the ‎consciousness of the self is nearing the stage at which it can be explored, analyzed, ‎mimicked, and even enhanced. This stage of evolution in the consciousness of the self is the ‎subject of this book. ‎
‎***‎
To understand the next step that human consciousness will take, let us first recap ‎what past generations have understood about the experience of human consciousness.‎
David Passig