The Nature of Experience: Thoughts on the Reality of Consciousness

By W.H. Sparks

This study identifies the structures and processes that create consciousness and the conscious experience. The expression of perceptions, memories, dreams, and emotions develop and are enhanced in intrafusal muscle spindles. These expressions, in many cases, are common to us all. We experience the environment as reality in the form of sensations: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, to use the common and traditional identifications.

Consciousness is experienced in the intrafusal muscle spindles. The fundamental purpose of the spindles is to control the muscular system. The process of control is the detection of the energy by a second set of receptors, the spindle receptors. The second set of receptors is critical to an explanation of the theory and serves to explain what heretofore has been the unknown factor in conscious experience: the experience of consciousness.

The spindle receptor detection is analogous to the detection of the environment by sensory receptors. The difference, of course, is that we are the intrafusal spindles detected by the spindle receptors. It is the efferent impulse activity from the congenitally and experientially configured synaptic activity that enhances the energies developed in the spindles as experience. This process is necessary for the experience of consciousness and the effective control of behavior.

For centuries, man has reflected upon the conscious nature of the human species. The Nature of Experience offers a new perspective on this eternal question.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462031672

W.H. Sparks

W.H. Sparks graduated from the University of Colorado. His primary field of study was philosophy. After graduation, Sparks continued his interest in studies of consciousness. Sparks is the author of Language and Conscious Experience and The Nature of Experience. He and his wife live in Southern California.

Book preview

I

A Different Theory

This theory of consciousness differs in many ways from current views of our nature. Two of the ways are (1) conscious experience is the detection of energies developed in the intrafusal muscle spindles. The brain simply enhances the development of energies with the discharge of efferent impulse activity from configured congenital and experiential synaptic activity. And (2) the congenital behavior of vocalization is developed as the meaningful behavior of language by agreement. The theory identifies the major structures and processes that accommodate consciousness and conscious experience.

The Nature of Experience

The nature of experience is expressed in terms of reality and the function of structures and processes that accommodate consciousness. The energies that constitute consciousness and conscious experience are those detected and transduced to nerve impulse activity by sensory and spindle receptors respectively. The impulse activity innervates the neuromuscular system and develops energies in intrafusal spindles. Consciousness is experienced by the intrafusal spindles. The development of energies is enhanced by efferent impulse activity discharged from configured synaptic activity between neurons. The detection of the enhanced development of energies in the intrafusal spindle is the experience of consciousness: not consciousness but the experience of consciousness.

Consciousness

We are taught that consciousness is in the brain. It is not. We have been taught incorrectly about the location and nature of consciousness because, initially, the structures and processes of conscious experience were unknown. Given that the early assumptions are incorrect and that they were intended to explain fundamental characteristics of our nature and behavior, it is reasonable to replace the explanations with more accurate identifications of the structures and processes involved. Furthermore, my analysis of the acquisition and development of language as an ancillary behavior to consciousness helps to explain how early assumptions created a semblance of our understanding of consciousness. Scientific theory, generally and mistakenly, considers consciousness to be in the brain.

Conscious Experience

Conscious experience is the detection by spindle receptors of the enhanced development of energies in intrafusal muscle spindles. The experience of developed energies is different from the detection of environmental energies. Both conscious experience and the perception of the environment are experienced by the intrafusal spindles throughout the muscle system. For example, imagery is experienced as energies in the spindles of the extraocular muscles of the eyes. Feelings and emotions are experienced as modifications of the experiencing muscle spindles. The meanings of language are experienced as an agreement on the association of conscious experience and the muscle spindles of vocalization. Our experience is manifested as the energies developed in the spindles are detected by spindle receptors. The association takes place non-consciously as the synapses discharge impulse activity away from the nerves and enhance their development in the spindles. The meanings of language are the experience of the vocalization agreed to. The conscious experience of the meanings of language has nothing to do with the conscious experience with which the meanings are associated.

The Experience of Consciousness

When we experience consciousness, we are responding to energies detected by receptors and transduced to nerve impulse activity. Our response is determined by the environment detected (the emotional response that is determined biorhythmically) and by experience determined by the efferent discharge of impulse activity from synapses configured congenitally or experientially. For example, try missing lunch—not to lose weight but to understand conscious experience. Conscious experience is your appetite, if you have one. In other words, the determinants are simply the environment, emotion, and experience.

Consciousness is experienced when the efferent discharge from the cerebral cortex enhances the development of energies detected in the intrafusal muscle spindles in response to innervation. The synaptic configuration can enhance the energies developed in the spindles of vocalization as agreed upon responses, as the conscious experience that initiates the behavior—in other words, as the meaningful behavior of language. We can agree to identifying the experience of consciousness as God, love, being, or anything else, but such identification doesn’t change the nature of the experience.

Our Conscious Nature

The nature of consciousness—both consciousness and conscious experience—is what results from the transduction of energies, as detected by receptors, to nerve impulse activity. The detection of muscle spindles involved in vocalization can be agreed to as being associated with the detection of energies by sensory or spindle receptors. The agreements on conscious experience are arbitrary and variable (witness the proliferation of languages). Agreement concretizes the associations as meaningful. The concretizing occurs as the behavior of speech is experienced. Any experience, and even whether or not there was an experience, is associated with what we can verbalize. In other words, the meaningful behavior of language, in the process of communicating real or imaginary conscious experience, can create preposterous claims and suppositions by playing on the common experiences of consciousness and conscious experience. Consider the oxymoron life after death. Complete nonsense.

Receptors

Sensory receptors and spindle receptors are the structures that detect and transduce energies to nerve impulse activity. The innervation of the system by the activity is experienced as consciousness.

The Second System of Receptors

The idea that consciousness is experienced as energies detected by a second system of receptors—the spindle receptors in the intrafusal muscle spindles—can be understood to explain what heretofore has been a mystery. The mystery has been the nature of the experience of consciousness, the mystery of how or what (or who) it is that experiences consciousness.

Consciousness has been acknowledged to be the energies of the environment dating back to the Greeks: light, sound, smell, and so forth. The list has been expanded, of course, but the essential nature of the premise has not changed. The change involves the knowledge of the experiencing. Conscious experience is the transduction of energies developed in the muscle spindles. Muscle spindles are innervated by nerve impulse activity transduced from energies detected by sensory receptors. The key to the explanation of consciousness is in understanding that the experience of consciousness is accomplished by a second system of receptors: the spindle receptors that detect and transduce the developed energies. The spindle receptor-detected energies can also be experienced as imagery, emotion, and when agreed to, the meanings of language.

Perception

Perception is a term that means both consciousness and the experience of consciousness. Perception is the process of experiencing energies of the environment as consciousness and the innervation of the system as conscious experience. This process is the experience of the detection of energies by sensory and spindle receptors. Although the experience of the environment and the experience of meaning implemented by the spindle receptors of vocalization are understood to be separate, the reality is that the process the term perception identifies is not. The processes of concretizing the experience of consciousness and experience are the same as concretizing the term perception. Perception, however, by definition, identifies both consciousness and conscious experience.

Experience and the Detection of Energies

The detection of intrafusal spindles by spindle receptors is analogous to the detection of the environment by sensory receptors. In the case of the environment, the experience is what we see, what we hear, what we smell, and so forth; in the case of intrafusal spindles the experience is what we perceive, what we imagine, what we feel, and in the case of language, what the environmental experience of words (either heard or read) has been agreed to as meaning.

Enhancement

The development of energy in intrafusal muscle spindles, muscle spindles that can be involved in behavioral response, is enhanced by efferent impulse activity discharged from configured synaptic activity in the cerebral cortex. The efferent impulse activity is discharged from synapses configured by experience. The sense of touch, for example, generates impulse activity that is transmitted to synapses that discharge impulse activity to the experiencing area. It is the location of touch that is experienced and, in the specific instance, may arouse the system to respond. Stepping on a tack emphasizes the point. The result is that the spindle receptors detect the stimulus as experience. This, in turn, serves to establish the identity or presence of the experiencing system, commonly referred to as I, me, or self. The process provides an identity of being. The process, essentially, is the experience of consciousness.

Behavior Modification

Behavior is response to the transduction of environmental energies to nerve impulse activity. The implementation of response has evolved the capability of control and modification by transducing, in turn, the energies of innervation. In other words, we initiate behavior in response to our detection of the dominant energies or to the energies the system determines as beneficial to it. This determination is either congenitally or experientially established. The energies that initiate the behavior are transmitted from synapses to the spindles. The activity, depending on the intensity, configures the synapses. Upon sufficient configuration, our behavior is modified.

Control and modification of behavior is implemented by enhancing the development of energies in the intrafusal spindles. This enhancement is determined by impulse activity from synaptic activity configured both by how our bodies were born (nature) and how our experience has changed us (nurture). The development of the behavior of language, by concretizing experience in the process of communication—whether or not the meanings of the behavior have any relevance to conscious experience and are other than agreement only—enables the ready availability of behavior control and modification.

Conscious Experience and Behavior Control

Impulses innervate the system. The innervation develops energies in the muscle system. The energies are detected by spindle receptors and initiate behavior and the modification of behavior. Innervation is experienced, and the responding behavior is controlled by the developed energies detected and transduced by the spindle receptors. The development of energies is enhanced by efferent impulse activity discharged by synaptic activity. The enhancement modifies the development of energies by modifying the innervation of the spindles. The conscious behavior performed is in response to the enhanced development of energies detected by spindle receptors.

Declarative Knowledge

Declarative knowledge is agreement on the association of the behavior of verbalization and the conscious experience it expresses. Knowing this and that experience is the reality of our being, we can understand that the nature of conscious experience is the fundamental response to reality—reality being the experience of the environment. The environment is experienced by the intrafusal muscle spindles, and the energies are detected by spindle receptors. Language is a fundamental response to conscious experience initiated for the purpose of communication. Agreements on the meanings of the behaviors of language do not determine the meanings to be reality for everyone. The significance of this knowledge can be put in perspective when we think of the turmoil caused by believing otherwise. Hanging witches in Salem was the least of the turmoil.

Knowledge and Agreement

Conscious experience refers to the detection of energies by spindle receptors: perception, imagery, feelings and, when agreed to, the energies developed as language. The experience of consciousness and conscious experience are different in that consciousness is the experience of the environment and conscious experience is the experience of intrafusal muscle spindles. The awkwardness of the expression is the result of the energies detected by spindle receptors being, in part, the experience of energies detected by sensory receptors. A more important aspect of the awkwardness, however, is that agreements on the meanings of language are not the detection of energies excited by the environment or the physiology of the system. The meanings are the agreement and the agreement can be on anything. Without agreement, however, there is no meaning and without meaning there is no declarative knowledge.

Knowledge and Reality

The theory that consciousness is nothing more than a process/product of the nervous system places our knowledge as a secondary conscious process and recognizes experience to be the reality of energies detected by receptors. The behavior that gives meaning to language assigns agreement to the association of conscious experience as real or imagined based on verbalization. This knowledge provides the basis for all major forms of communication. When knowledge is concretized as reality, however, it ceases to be communication. When this happens, knowledge becomes a deterrent to the experience of reality, whether in the social sciences, government, or religion. This theory of consciousness is no exception. The purpose of the theory is only to communicate this knowledge.

Religion and Psychology

The innervated system initiates behavior in response to the transduction of the energies detected. The behavior of language can create an innervated condition that, when agreed to, can express the conscious experience that initiates it. The meanings of the behavior—the conscious experience of words—is not the experience itself. Trying to establish the experience of the concretizations as reality is an idealistic effort and a waste of time. Both religion and psychology are products of this nonsense. Well-meaning persons in both fields might be better citizens for their efforts, but their dispositions are not the result of reality.

II

The Theory of Energy Detection

The theory of consciousness outlined here identifies the major structures and the function of those processes that determine conscious experience. The transduction of energies by individual receptors into the muscle system (afferently) occurs by way of the cerebellum. Research