Conscious Experience: The Reality of Consciousness and the Experience of Being

By W.H. Sparks

The fundamental principles that explain the heretofore mysterious phenomena of consciousness are: (1) Consciousness is energies of the environment, and energies developed in intrafusal muscle spindles are conscious experience, and (2) the experience occurring as the developed energies, depending on purpose and intensity, are detected by muscle receptors. The conscious experience occurs as perception (the experience of the environment), imagery (imagination, memory, and dreams), feelings (emotion), or, when agreed to, the meanings of language.

Consciousness and conscious experience are not subject to the interpretations of scientific and religious knowledge because consciousness is the individual experience of each and every person. In Conscious Experience, author W.H. Sparks presents a discussion of the relationship of consciousness and experience based on his extensive research and his personal experiences.

Along with a review of the development of the theory of consciousness, Sparks offers a plethora of facts and thoughts about conscious experience, including:

An explanation of the nature and experience of consciousness How the experience of energies detected by receptors constitutes conscious experience The idea that conscious experience is detected as the energies developed in the intrafusal spindles by muscle receptors How consciousness is experienced by the muscle system The structures of experience are the intrafusal muscle spindles The impulse activity transduced from the detected energies innervates the muscle system The recognition of the part the muscle receptors play in conscious experience is the process that finally answers the question of consciousness and conscious experience

In the Conscious Experience, Sparks provides information that shows conscious experience includes perception, imagery, feelings, and the meanings of languageall qualities unique to each individual.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491737767

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

THE EXPERIENCE OF REALITY

I recognized at a young age the contradiction between the reality I experienced around me and what was being said about it. There was no way that the laws of science could be reconciled with the dictates and statements of the Judeo-Christian Bible. The miracles, to me, were simply not credible. In addition to the nonsense of the stories, wars, illness, and misfortune seemed unaffected by prayers and faith. I questioned the theory of creationism taught in the school I attended simply because of the impossibility of the miracles and the obvious disagreement of our beginnings with Darwin’s Origin of Species. I read an article that described the theory of evolution in language and pictures that a child could understand. If I recall correctly, I had sent for the copy in response to an advertisement in the back of a comic book.

My questioning of our beginnings at the youthful age of ten or eleven lacked any sort of sophistication, but the question of our origin is the same at any age. The argument was fueled by my interest in the educational material I had received on evolution and by active discussions with schoolmates at the time. The Second World War was still fresh in people’s thoughts, and the loss of life and limb by friends and acquaintances was too real to ignore. For these reasons, the theory of a benevolent God was difficult for me to accept. Of course, a general answer to the question of our beginnings has long since been accepted by science in many advanced societies. However, in my own experience, in the social order I was part of in my youth, it was still an open question. The conservative theology of the Evangelical Christians was, at that time, still very popular in the rural areas of the country.

There were reasons why the issue of our beginnings was particularly confusing to me. It seemed that the proponents on both sides of the discussion were intelligent people and people I respected. Yet they were all convinced of the truth of their beliefs. I did not have the maturity to think in terms other than the literal meanings of what was being said. It was obvious, however, that the literal meanings of the prevailing theories found in religious works were in sharp contrast to the reality of my experience. There is still a question in intellectual circles about the literal meanings of religious dogma and an abstract interpretation of the theories. The argument promises to continue. The significant point in my own case is that, at a formative time in my youth, the question of our being was considered to be of some importance and was not answered to my satisfaction for many years.

The question of being—in particular, my own—became more significant as I reached the age when I should have been thinking about a practical career. Although I made a choice to study the field of engineering, I became dissatisfied with the university program from the beginning of my enrollment. The questions I had entertained from my earlier years remained, and I was not at all excited about the engineering courses. After about two frustrating years at the university, a profound change came about in my conscious experience. I temporarily dropped out of college with plans to reevaluate my outlook on life and find a more satisfactory career.

It was at this time that a major change occurred in my disposition and conscious orientation. The change involved both the content and purpose of my questioning. I was doing a good deal of reading and thinking at the time. What prompted the change is not clear. However, the change in my personality, disposition, and behavior was remarkable. There seemed, after the experience, no question of my being or how or why we are here. It’s not that the questions were answered by the experience of what I later called enlightenment; it was simply that there were no questions. The positive experience was consciousness or, in other words, the experience of my being.

We can agree that we are conscious as we go through the day. It’s reasonable to assume that we do not spend a lot of time concerning ourselves with the experience of consciousness; rather, we are concerned with what we experience—both at work and at play. The experience of consciousness, the actual experience, is different. The reality of the experience that is manifest as the experience of being is a unique experience. It is an experience that is not soon forgotten, to say the least.

I recognized at the time that the conscious experience of my change in personality has occurred to many people and is considered a religious experience in some social circles. The event is quite often referred to by religious advocates as an epiphany or born-again experience. But more importantly, the experience also has been witnessed by philosophers, poets, and individuals less superstitious and more creditable that those professing spiritual contact with a Supreme Being. Many times the experience is described by the individuals in terms that can only be interpreted as an experience of being, or, as I later determined, an experience of consciousness. I was not oriented toward religious teachings in my search for an explanation to my questions. To be candid, my questioning was oriented in the opposite direction.

It was about this time that Melville’s Moby-Dick and Shelley’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty had a great effect on my conscious experience. I entertained the question as to whether or not the intellectual disposition of enlightenment requires a behavior or expression for understanding. I have long since determined that expressions of being are more likely to be in the way of the experience of consciousness than any help.

At the time of my experience of consciousnss, I had no questions about the reasons for this personality change. As I better understood the experience, I learned that questions most often raised are in response to ignorance, superstition, and belief. Our questions are initiated by the meanings of words or knowledge that are incompatible with our conscious experience. We experience consciousness: we are aware of our being, we imagine, we feel, we dream, we talk, and we think. It is from our knowledge that is incompatible with our experience of consciousness that questions arise. At the time of my experience of consciousness, I did not experience any incompatible knowledge.

For the purpose of clarifying the experience of consciousness, I will refer again to my initial experience. The conscious experience and personality change I experienced are not only necessary for the explanation of consciousness, but they were primary in the continuation of my formal education and, as it turned out, my informal education also. It was not what I had experienced that was important; rather, my conscious experience and attitude were affected in a major, positive way. Both my disposition and understanding were changed. The experience was such an important event in my life that it served as a turning point not only in my university studies but for my continued interest in and study of the nature of consciousness.

Regarding the experience of consciousness, it is important to emphasize the change in personality and conscious perspective that I witnessed. Whether the experience is precipitated, in individual cases, as a matter of emotional maturity, religious enthusiasm, or some traumatic event, the conscious experience, however it is identified, is not an uncommon occurrence. It is a very special occurrence, to be sure, but it is not all that rare. As noted above, the experience has been witnessed by many persons over the ages and, unfortunately in many cases, misunderstood and identified in superstitious and nonsensical terms.

The personality change that I experienced as I reached adulthood included the recognition that declarative knowledge (manifest primarily as language) is a product of agreement among communicating persons on the experiences associated with the behavior of vocalization. The declarative knowledge is the agreement. The conscious experience of the meanings is not an expression of being but serves to provide a substitute for conscious experience in the form of declarative knowledge of our presence and experience of being. The declarative knowledge, created by the behavior of language for the purpose of communication is, without agreement, meaningless.

Convinced of the reality of consciousness after my experience I returned to the university. I was determined to investigate the characteristics of human nature that could explain the phenomenon. Upon completion of my undergraduate studies at the university, I moved to San Francisco and began an informal program of study on my own in the fields of physiology and neurobiology. My interest was encouraged or, more correctly, inspired by my unique experience of consciousness. My assumption was that consciousness could be accounted for by knowledge of the physiology of the system. My studies were strictly of my own choice and on my own schedule. As naive as my approach was, it seemed obvious to me that the answer to the question of the experience of consciousness could be explained by the system that did the experiencing. I had the vague notion that something or some combination of processes united to create the condition that we experience. Of course this, as well as other notions I had about consciousness, was completely off the mark.

After about two years of studying the physiology of the neuromuscular system in search of an explanation of the phenomenon of consciousness, I experienced a second and equally significant understanding of the subject. I had taken a break from my studies one morning and left my desk for a change of scenery. It was a beautiful sunny morning when I went to the lobby of my apartment building. The colors of the carpet, the walls, and all the furnishings were brilliant. (This, of course, was subject to the eye of the beholder. The building could not be considered upscale.) In a moment of near ecstasy, I realized that my consciousness was sensation; the perception of the environment.

The energies of the environment are detected and transduced to nerve impulse activity by sensory receptors. The impulse activity is transmitted to glands and muscles by neurons through synapses. The content of consciousness is the experience of the environment. The content of conscious experience is the energies developed and enhanced in the intrafusal muscle spindles. We identify the experience of the environment, and we identify various forms of conscious experience with the meaningful behavior of language. The reality of consciousness and conscious experience, however, is the experience, not the meanings of the identifications. The experience of being is specific to every person. The determinants of consciousness—the environment, neuromodulators (emotion) and enhancement (experience)—are different and graded for every individual. Being, therefore, is different for every individual. Language offers a semblance of consistency by agreement on the expressions of vocalizations. The meanings of the response, however, are never reality.

Almost immediately, however, my enthusiasm over my understanding of the nature of consciousness was disrupted. I realized that imagination, which is the experience of imagery (the faint pictures that we experience as memory and in dreams, for example), could not be accounted for by conscious experience being the detection of the environment by sensory receptors. The experience of the images occurs internally and by intention. If, I thought, consciousness is the environment detected by sensory receptors, where and what is the experience of imagery?

In my effort to investigate the problem, I went immediately to a technical bookstore I often frequented, to get information on the function of the eyes. I found Brindley’s Physiology of the Retina and Visual Pathway (see the Bibliography). Brindley discusses the efferent neurons (referred to at the time of his writing as centrifugal neurons) that seemed to have no purpose. The neurons transmit impulse activity from configured synaptic activity, primarily in the cerebral cortex, to the area of the sensory receptors at the perimeter of the system. I immediately made the assumption that the imagery was manifest in the sensory receptors by the efferent impulse activity. Although it turned out to be incorrect (imagery is manifest as the detection of energies in the intrafusal muscle spindles—I did not understand this at the time), the assumption of a purpose for the efferent neuron activity did serve as a working hypothesis. As it turns out, imagery is a different process than perception.

Imagery is the detection of the enhancement of the energies developed in the muscle spindles. It was many years before I understood this. Enhancement of the intrafusal spindles is the energies developed by efferent impulse activity from configured synaptic activity. Perception is the experience of the environment, and it is the energies developed by afferent impulse activity transmitted from sensory receptors. I concluded that the hypothesis I had reached was consistent with my speculation that consciousness is an experience that occurs at the periphery of the neuromuscular system. The mistake I made at the time was associating imagery with the sensory receptors rather than the intrafusal muscle spindles in the oculomotor muscles of the eyes. The assumption that consciousness is the detection of energies by sensory receptors, and that the experience occurs at the periphery of the neuromuscular system as the detection of the intrafusal muscle spindles, was not affected by the erroneous conclusion.

After I assumed consciousness to be the detection and transduction of environmental energies, I became aware of another question. If consciousness is the experience of the environment detected by the sensory receptors and experienced as sensation, the question becomes: what experiences consciousness, and what creates the imagery we experience? I asked myself,