There is a worldwide movement of scholars, scientists, and everyday folks in quest of enlightenment—an awakening and exploration of the mysteries of consciousness. I count myself a humble votary of this metaphysical adventure. First, I had to survive graduate philosophy at Columbia University where the very idea of consciousness was suspect, according to the reigning materialists. Materialist science rejected the reality of anything mental or conscious. But this assault falls on its face. Without consciousness there could be no judgement of what is real or illusory.
Consciousness, as we know it, has at least three different forms: our waking sensory world, the dream world produced in sleep, and the mystical world of visionary experience. There are no physical explanations of the origin of consciousness. Consciousness is fundamental, the irreducible datum, the core of our existence. The mystery of its origins is only the beginning of the challenge. There are three properties of consciousness worth noting: memory, creativity, immortality. The worldwide movement is about exploring the higher dimensions of our evolving consciousness. I believe that consciousness research may well be the key to the survival and flourishing of life on Earth.
I want to relate some stories that touch on animal consciousness. We humans are not the only form of conscious life on Earth. Consciousness comes in all sorts of shapes and forms, all levels of depth and complexity. One day I was typing away on my computer when looking down on the space below the keys, I noticed a dot-sized object slowly moving. It was on its way somewhere in a straight line. It was alive, but no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. I then placed my left index finger in front of the tiny bug, and it walked around my finger. Again, I tried to bully the little guy and blocked his passage; but again, ignoring my intrusion, bravely he marched around my finger, showing me his proud but tiny intentionality. So I stopped annoying him. This tiny point of life was animated by a willful consciousness. It had to be aware of an obstacle and proved it by directing itself away from the obstacle. I was struck by the idea of a conscious life energy operating at such a micro scale.
From a plucky dot of life I want to recount the tale of Clio, a cat who became a good friend of mine. One sunny afternoon not too long ago, I opened the side door of my house and was surprised to see a smallish, grey, brown, and white-streaked cat, sitting motionless on the stoop about ten feet away from me. It sat there and stared at me. I shrugged and closed the door. What happened was this. Thet cat showed up the next two days, and each time sat in the same place and just looked at me without moving. It was a cute cat, and I wondered why it sat so stock still when I opened the door. I never guessed it might politely be waiting for an invitation.
The following day when I stepped out there it was again. This time I walked up to the cat and introduced myself and pat the furry head. We looked into each other’s eyes. Hi ! I murmured, and for some reason I thought of the cat being the reincarnation of an unhappy woman. I stepped back toward the door into my house and this time the cat came along with me. “Oh,” I said, “would you care to come in for a moment?” And the cat strode right in, in unison with the steps I took. Once inside, the feline went on a tour of inspection in every room, brushing up against certain spots as if to mark them. After the survey, the cat came straight to me who was sitting down. I pet and picked up the cat and we became instant friends.
I noticed there was a locket around its neck with a name and address. Two houses over was the home of the cat. I soon learned that the cat’s name was Clio and was let out all day but was fed if it came back to its presumptive home. If Clio were my cat, I wouldn’t let her roam free right next to a hilly road where cars regularly shoot by. I stood up and Clio followed me around for a while until I went to the door and opened it and thought “Out!” And out went the cat. I had a distinct sensation of mental rapport with Clio. The following day she came by for a visit, and it became a habit lasting for several weeks. Almost every day she came by. It was a ritual of contact. She would do her thing around the house, and we would have a period of playing together, and of nestling and petting. Then I would retire to my desk or whatever I was doing. I should mention that Clio was not visiting me for food or drink. Her sole reason was social and for entertainment. There was something she did at least once at every meeting. I’ll call it Clio’s Whirligig. She would do this for the sheer fun of it, a demonstration of her agility, her quasi-levitation. She would leap in the air, and sping around, trying to catch her tail; it was hilarious to behold, and she looked pleased with her performance. This was the climax of her visit. She knew when it was time to leave and would go stand by the door and I would let her out.
I felt a little uncomfortable when Clio started to show up at odd hours and was hanging out for longer stretches. She was a neighbor’s cat but seemed to want to stay with me. One night it was raining and windy, close to midnight, and I thought I heard something outside. I opened the door and there was Clio, curled up and cowering by my door. I bent down and picked the cat up and walked to the back of the house, “Back to your house, Clio,” I said and laid her down on the wet ground and gave her a gentle shove back toward her home. I made up my mind that I would break the habit of letting the cat in my house. We had a friendly relationship. I had no doubt that Clio was a conscious being and that we had feelings for each other. But she wasn’t my cat, so I decided not to let her in anymore.
I missed her company, and she quit trying to visit me. A month or so passed and then one day I was looking out my window and I saw Clio, standing in the street, about three feet from the sidewalk. I had a bad feeling. The following day I got the news from my neighbor that Clio was run over by a car. Exactly what I feared might happen. I allow myself to speculate. There are reports from the near-death universe that our pets show up in the next world. If animals have souls, why not? Why not, if immortality is a property of consciousness? If there is another world, there should be room for Clio to find her way.
If our pets carry on, why not all the living creatures of nature that have some degree and manner of consciousness and soul? For example, why not a mouse? The last time I had a mouse in my house I caught him live in a trap and let him go at the far end of my backyard. Recently, another mouse moved in with me, but this little guy must have a high IQ. One night I was lying in bed and about to turn off the light and sleep when I felt a tiny tug on my bedsheet. I sprang up and turned on the light and there was a mouse scrambling away from me, bulletlike shooting out of my bedroom. On three other occasions I had to halt the mouse from occupying my bedroom. This mouse stayed away from the trap I used in the past, so I had to resort to more fatal devices, steel springs and poison pellets. I’ve named him Mickey Mouse and now have set up three different traps but so far Mickey has avoided them all. I knew the very night that Mickey moved in with me. He ate a portion of an avocado I left out to ripen. Now I leave my avocadoes to ripen in the fridge. The other night I Ieft three bananas under a basket on top of the fridge. In the morning I found the basket overturned and a good part of one of my bananas devoured.
I couldn’t help admiring Mickey’s intelligence and will power, but he was an intruder and a thief. So I decided to remove every scrap of food from sight. Instead, I dumped the scraps in sturdy garbage bags. But each time I did that Mickey would bite through the bags and snatch anything inside that was edible. Each time he did this he created a mess I had to clean up. Mickey was outwitting me, so I hid the garbage bags. But then he devised a new strategy. I noticed a bar of soap, one sponge, and two small towels were missing. Hard to believe, but he stole them all. I had a hard time finding them. I found the sponge and the bar of soap hidden away behind my paintings in my studio and the two towels squeezed into a crack behind the stove in my kitchen. All this proved that Mickey was conscious and capable of keeping a moderately evolved human being at bay. What did stealing my bar of soap, sponge, and towels signify to Mickey? Nothing there to eat. Maybe it was just meant to annoy me—a sign of protest, a mousey vendetta? Mickey’s thought might conceivably be: “Hey Human! You’re trying to kill me. What’s my crime? Hunger. Starvation of the innocent is against international law. Or does the law ignore the rights of animals?”
I know there are more exalted realms of conscious existence worthy of exploration and pointing toward the great Next Step in Evolution. I wanted to underscore how the lowest forms of life are in their way imbued with consciousness. There is a school of thought that sees not just living life forms, trees and animals, but the whole of physical nature as conscious. The mountains, the rivers and seas, forests and deserts, all with their forms of consciousness. But to feel it, to breathe and taste it, to listen to its songs and symphonies, to fly, dive, dream it—that is the question. How to connect?
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