Degrees of Consciousness, Part 2

Degrees of Consciousness, Part 2

“Consciousness is the water we swim in, and in our everyday lives we have almost as little distance on it as fish do of the sea. We can’t ever climb out of the water and stand on its shore .”[1]

Michael Pollan

Last week I introduced the degrees of consciousness summarized by Michael Pollan in his book, “A World Appears.” The four degrees, in ascending order, are sentience, feeling, thought, and a sense of self. The factor that appears to differentiate the highest degree of consciousness – a sense of self – from the lower degrees is the ability to be conscious of one’s own consciousness. Is a tree aware that it is a tree? Just because it can sense changes in its environment and react to them does not necessarily mean that it is consciously aware of its tree-ness. Plants have sentience, but their ability to react to changes in their environment is limited, primarily because of their inability to change locations. Plants cannot scuttle or fly across the landscape to escape danger like most insects and humans can. But most plants, at least those indigenous to their local area, do have the ability to survive the environment they are restricted to, at least in terms of temperature extremes and moisture fluctuations.

So which trait would we consider as operating from a higher degree of consciousness – the ability to survive environmental extremes in place or the ability to transport oneself to a more hospitable area? More basically, do we consider either of these abilities as evidence of consciousness? In other words, are the plants or insects using conscious awareness in their responses to threats or are they simply reacting in unconscious ways consistent with their internal design?

To return to a common definition of consciousness, ChatGPT provided two aspects to consciousness. First was the capacity to have a subjective experience. Second was that there must be something it feels like to be that subject. And yet, how can we possibly know if a tree is aware that it is a tree or an ant is aware that it is an ant? Are we just anthropomorphizing other parts of creation? And in what realm of reality would we assume we have the ability to do so? Isn’t that just human arrogance, to judge another part of creation’s conscious awareness based on ours? And who says that ours is the highest degree of consciousness? We cannot possibly know what goes on internally in each other, let alone in any other part of creation. We may speculate that a rock does not possess conscious awareness, but we can never know with certainty whether it does or not, let alone whether its conscious awareness is greater or lesser, superior or inferior, more or less evolved than ours.

Of course, the first quality of consciousness, that of having a subjective experience, is of itself subjective. By definition, a subjective experience is personal to the person or thing having the experience. If we cannot know the nature or contents of another’s inner experience, which we cannot, how could we ever know if someone or something is having a subjective experience and thus displaying this key quality of consciousness, let alone whether the degree of consciousness displayed is greater or lesser than ours? And what would ChatGPT know about conscious experience anyway? It admits to its own lack of consciousness. While we have amazing tools to examine the functioning of our brains, like fMRI, we can only know which areas of the brain are being engaged, but we cannot know the images or interpretations being experienced by the possessor of that brain. And yet, what other measure do we possess? We can ask, but we cannot independently verify a subjective report.

In the context of examining the degrees of consciousness of the non-human parts of creation, I think we are at a loss. Even for human beings we are hampered by our inability to step outside of our own consciousness in order to observe it. We can assess the usefulness of the consciousness of a tree (or any other part of creation) based upon what we imagine would be useful to a tree, but we cannot know how the tree might rate our degree of consciousness with respect to tree-consciousness.

In truth, whether a tree is aware that it is a tree or an ant is aware it is an ant is irrelevant to anything but human curiosity, which is probably the only consciousness that would care about such trivial matters. If consciousness is but a tool in the struggle to survive and reproduce, what evolutionary benefit is gained by having subjective experiences and defining what it is like to be oneself? Deep-thinking humans have long concluded that the path to contentment, happiness, and consummation is through accepting what one is, as one is, and where one is. We humans appear to be the only species that has such difficulty in doing so.

This is the 14^thin a series titled The Perplexities of Consciousness. Life Notes are my explorations into mysteries that interest me. They are invitations for readers to explore more deeply into life’s mysteries. Engage with me or explore contemplative spiritual direction at ghildenbrand@outlook.com.

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[1] Michael Pollan, A World Appears, Penguin Press, New York, 2026, p. xxvi.