Introduction:
This is Part 2 of a series offering a relatively lighthearted take on a “heavy” topic: the Berggruen Prize Essay Competition, 2025 theme, Consciousness.
Rather than respond with a dense academic treatise, I took it as an open-ended creative invitation. The result is a series of playful dialogues that still wrestle with some of the classic, timeless questions at the heart of human experience.
It eventually grew far too long for the competition’s 10,000-word limit — but whether it gets submitted is beside the point. The real value was in the writing itself. Thus, Substack.
“Unless you are proposing your own theory of consciousness, your essay should demonstrate knowledge of established theories of consciousness that might reflect on, but by no means be limited to, the following themes:
Origin of consciousness
Materiality of consciousness
Emergence of consciousness
Non-human consciousness (including machines)
Manifestation of consciousness
Threshold of consciousness
Consciousness in relation to life
Experience of consciousness
Evolution of consciousness
Consciousness across cosmologies
Whether I end up writing from all of these promptings (and they are deeply interconnected, after all) remains to be seen: inspiration cannot be ordered up at will!
The conversation between Julian and Sanjay continues, up on the cliff
The ocean glowed blue and turquoise, with shades of green-grey farther out and white foam curling close to the shore.
Julian and Sanjay sat high above, the Southern California sun and a light breeze gracing them as they returned to their favorite spot — a lunchtime escape from the institute. From their serene perch atop the cliff, it felt like a mini-vacation. And today, on these monastery grounds, it was somehow free of tourists on this rare and fateful day.
After their sandwiches and small talk, they sat in silence, gazing out at the vast blue-grey plane that stretched to the horizon, where a single cloud — the only one bold enough to endure the intensity of the July sun — cast a pleasant shadow on a distant patch of ocean.
"You know, I was thinking..." Julian said, squinting at the shadow on the water.
"This often occurs," Sanjay quipped, warmly, in his slight Indian accent.
"Haha, very droll..." he chuckled. "So... you know how we were chatting yesterday about consciousness and history, or evolution, and that it makes no sense to talk about the past, as far as this, uh, background field — the totality." He paused, trying to frame his thoughts carefully.
"Well, that’s an elegant — or at least fair — way to put it..." Sanjay said, earnestly.
"Yeah, that's not really what we said, exactly, was it?" He chuckled.
"No, but it’s good. Go on. But be careful, you’re going to be excommunicated, if you get too philosophical."
"Ha, yeah, really." Julian smiled and chuckled again, knowing Sanjay was much more steeped in a philosophical tradition of inquiry than he was, having studied philosophy in his native country before switching to the sciences and eventually moving to the U.S.
"But please go on, sir," Sanjay said, in a half joking way, mocking him affectionately.
"Yes, well we kind of dabbled in the idea of the dream. The dream metaphor."
"Right." He cleared his throat. "So..." he furrowed his brow, trying to articulate what was brewing in his mind. "So let's say I am a researcher in this field."
"Interesting speculation!"
"Haha. Anway, don’t we have to assume — for our research — that there is a local source, so to speak, for consciousness?"
"Yes." Sanjay said, with a rising inflection—an ambiguous one—as if half agreeing, and half questioning.
"So... if we don't do that, we’ll be mocked. I mean, it would be considered nuts."
Sanjay continued in his half-mocking tone, not in the mood for seriousness. "Are you suggesting, my dear fellow, that UFOs are the source of our brain waves?"
"No, come on, I'm serious," Julian said, his voice cracking — not quite able to maintain the serious tone.
Sanjay kept joking. "We will have to make you a tin foil hat."
"Yeah. So here’s the thing."
"Many things, indeed," Sanjay said. Then calrified, “To my mind, by investigating consciousness, we are already suggesting and alternative to the ‘many things’ assumption of an objective view.”
"OK, wow, yeah, so what I was going to say was, that the thing is... what if — what if it turns out, we were wrong. Like, really wrong. Seriously wrong. In our most basic assumption."
"Yes?..." Again, Sanjay raised his tone, as if asking a question, but a tad more serious this time.
"What if, say, after we do a decade of research — or two — someone comes up with a compelling argument, maybe even experimental evidence, that consciousness isn’t local? Something analogous to what Bell’s Theorem did for quantum mechanics — where it ruled out local hidden variables, showing that local realism can’t explain what we’re seeing — like, some kind of correlations we observe. What if something like that happens with consciousness? … It would be like finding out we’ve been assuming locality where there is none. And if we're wrong about that, we’ll have egg on our face," Julian said.
"Egg? I am not acquainted with this. So, embarrassed, yes?"
"Yeah — one of those funny English idioms. Means embarrassed or looking foolish, in an especially public way."
"Yes, well, you’re the expert on physics. Was your major, not mine." Then he said, in a slight British accent, trying to maintain some levity, "Plod on, dear fellow."
"OK. So. Here we are. Developing these theories. These mechanisms, these models — all predicated on the idea, the axiom, of local consciousness. Or consciousnesses, plural."
"They are wrong."
"What?!"
"They are wrong."
Julian stared at his friend, unsure how to respond, his brain wheels turning.
"Too many mushrooms," Sanjay said, again trying to lighten the tone — familiar as he was with his friend’s tendency to edge into a hyper-serious, almost obsessive groove. One of the occupational hazards of technically brilliant people, apparently. Or maybe they gravitated to such fields, having been born that way… one of the mysteries of life.
They both laughed.
"… Funny mushrooms. You Americans like tweaking your brain chemicals. Neuromodulators to the rescue."
"I'm serious."
"I know you’re serious. But look — what can you do? And what kind of theory or proof are you imagining? I don't think it's possible," he said, more serious and earnest now.
"What do you mean?"
"What — you imagine this theory of... what? Universal Consciousness? Universal Intelligence? What would it look like? How do you prove to others, what you're proposing... or imagining? This is very different from physics. There may be parallels, but it’s not the same. Not at all."
"Well..." Julian looked puzzled now. "You were the one coming up with — or talking about — the dream metaphor yesterday."
"Yes, so... this is the subjective realm. It’s real, but not provable in the same way as in science. At least science as it is now."
"So it seems to me that that sort of undermines the whole framework of us coming up with a causal story of consciousness. It’s just a pre-existing fact, if I understood you correctly. It’s like a background reality that any theory appears in. So it kind of undermines locality — like Bell’s did with physical theories of locality in quantum mechanics."
"Now wait, my friend. I didn’t propose any causal theories or models of consciousness. I was just having a bit of fun, using a speculative metaphor, like a philosopher. We were playing with the idea of a dream, right? See where it led us. But I’m not a philosopher, really. I’m just a humble toiler in the fields of meta-psychology."
"Meta-psychology. Ha. I like that. Metaphors in meta-psychology. Gee, what’s a meta for, anyway?"
“Haha.” Sanjay smiled, but plowed on.
“We’re just here to try and build a science — a new science — one that our esteemed Dr. Ferretti will hopefully approve of, yes?” he said, reflecting the mission statement of their wing of the institute — the one that paid their salaries: Frontiers of Science: Center for Consciousness Studies. He paused for a moment, since he was casting his net wide. “You know, we can't take any of this too seriously. We don't know what any of this is... is at all.”
They had both finished eating and were sitting at the bench with their legs stretched out, arms folded, staring intently at the sea.
"Any of… what? I mean, I agree it’s all the unknown, but isn't there the implication…"
“No, no, I mean any of these things the physical theory points to — in itself. We don’t know what anything is at all! Like Kant said, with the noumena. Light, matter, energy — we just have names for particles or waves, or phenomena as they appear to us — no way of knowing what’s behind it all, what they are in themselves — just some movements on a screen. Changing numbers.” He looked at the ocean for a moment, as if to study it. “Movements. That’s all we have. If it doesn’t move, doesn’t change, we don’t — we can’t — know anything. Nothing is known.”
“So no… no implications, no theory. Just phenomena.” Julian paused for a second to ponder. “OK, well, sure — just phenomena... but we, I mean… we have to assume there’s something behind it. Otherwise, what are we doing here?”
“Not at all. Not at all,” his friend said. Julian was now looking intently at Sanjay, the furrow in his brow deeper than before — almost a groove. Sanjay was worried that groove was going to become a permanent feature of his friend’s facial landscape; his look was so intense.
“Listen, listen,” Sanjay said, almost paternalistically, but warmly, emphasizing each word forcefully — as if making a sign. “We cannot assume anything along the lines of a permanent, real, solid, external, separate reality. At all. Or we are doomed. From the beginning. Not for this. Especially not for this. But we have to make do with temporary structures — these mathematical models — in order to do our science. Right?”
“Uh. Fair enough. I get it, what you’re driving at. This is completely a kind of subjective landscape, like in the dream metaphor, and… and at the same time we’re playing around with modeling.” He grabbed his chin and looked down at the ground in front of the bench. “I don’t know. It’s all a kind of uncomfortable sort of contradiction, almost. I mean, what about honesty — that’s what I meant when I said, ‘what are we doing here’ — playing and making things up? Or is it a real science, like physics — a hard science?”
Sanjay picked up the ball easily, as if he’d tread these philosophical byways for many years, sculpting concepts into sentences. “It’s like a social game. Think of it that way. It’s not lying; it’s as if we are actors on a stage, and we have to do the best we can to make things work with what’s available on the stage. We’ve been given these props, these tools and models — the framework Ferretti gave us: the Simulon Field... the Markov Polytope... for one — as a starting point.”
“Yeah. Don’t forget your personal baby — The Ananda Gradient.”
He grinned.
“And mine — the Liminal Tensor with the Psi-Flux Commutator.”
“There you go. See? We aren’t starting with nothing. We’ve got scaffolding to build on.”
“OK, but you seem to be saying it’s not based on anything real.”
“No, no — it’s all real,” he said with finality, but somewhat mysteriously, as if he knew the secret but couldn’t tell anyone how it worked.
“Fuck. Now I’m really confused,” said Julian.
Sanjay laughed. “You just have to put the cart behind the horse, where it belongs. Everyone’s had it backwards.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have consciousness appearing in this manifold — somehow emerging from a concept, namely the concept of matter. Like I said, no one has seen this beast called “matter” or even “energy” or “light”, for that matter. Pardon the pun. We only have traces of its behavior. Then somehow they assume you get the very consciousness in which those concepts of matter appeared in the first place, caused by that … as just another object. How can awareness appear out of that — out of a set of concepts for what is ultimately unknown? It makes no sense, to me.” He paused for second, then said. “Can a thought think?” and paused again, looking at the ocean. “It’s all backwards, and self-contradictory. No wonder everyone goes around in circles, endlessly arguing, getting nowhere.”
“Interesting. I... I think I see what you’re saying. Phew. That’s pretty wild. It turns everything inside out.”
“Yes.”
“And too, what you’re saying is, we have to be careful with our starting point — our starting assumption...”
“Not careful, just aware — I mean, we can — those who have the privilege of doing philosophy, the mind for it, the predilection, the interest, and the freedom. We…”
"Whoa, whoa, slow down... So OK — I mean, the implication, the picture you’re painting with the cart behind the horse, implies quite obviously that instead of a local consciousness — or consciousnesses, plural — it’s all appearing in one consciousness, as it were… but… then , is that local or non-local… it has to be non-local, right? I’m still a little confused."
“No,” Sanjay said, his tone calm but not quite readable — not a denial, but as if to invite a shift in perspective. He kept his eyes on the ocean, speaking as though this were well-tread territory, and he was merely reporting, almost casually.
"I don't follow. It's one or the other."
"Is it?"
“Uh, let me back up… We’re talking about the brain — as the so-called seat of consciousness, right?” He made air quotes with his fingers. “I mean, as far as our research. Not this conversation... And if not the brain as the origin, then it’s like a receiver or something. Or a reducing valve. That’s our starting assumption — for the research. Just to comply with the world we’re working in. And the AI folks we collaborate with.”
“Fair enough. Yes.”
“Otherwise, we’re out of whack… or whacko. Out of order!” He yelled at the ocean, and they both laughed.
“Yes. So it is.” said Sanjay.
“But...”
“But what?”
Julia seemed determined to argue one side against that other. “We don’t really know that. I mean, we don’t really know that the brain is the seat of consciousness — if we’re honest. Like you’re saying. We’re only assuming that in order to do this research. And, like we were saying yesterday — or you were saying — I was just going along for the ride, the philosophical ignoramus that I am. But even to me, it feels like there’s a glitch in the logic, overall, that I’m now sure if its safe to ignore.”
“Also true.”
“So... how do you reconcile that?”
“I don’t try to.”
Julian looked at him, narrowing his eyes as he furrowed his brow.
“But... why? I mean, obviously it’s an issue. It seems to be a problem. A big one. Potentially.”
“Seems to be. But isn’t...” Again he paused to reflect. “No. Why try and force things into a box? Just let them be as they are.”
He said this as if grasping something intuitive, gesturing with his hands toward the edge of the garden and the ocean beyond.
“We do research by day and philosophize at night. Or at lunchtime. Then we go home, be with our wives, have our dinner, play with our kids. No problem.” He gave the last sentence an extra bit of Indian accent, gratuitously, injecting some playfulness again:
“Sure, sure. I get that. They’re their own domains. And... but, if the bigger domain is saying, ‘Hey, you’re assuming dead wrong’...?”
“No, no. The dream metaphor was just saying, ‘We don’t know squat.’ It wasn’t saying, ‘You’re wrong.’
They’re not separate domains. They’re like... more like nested domains. So in the dream, you do this research, right? And go home at night and rest easy, knowing it’s all taken care of — in the dreaming.
You wake up, and poof — it’s gone.
This research domain is a dream within a dream.
What we build with the mind... or as a mind.”
“What we build with the mind...” Julian echoed, his voice distant and puzzled, staring at the ocean horizon, trying to get his head around something.
Sanjay Goes Matrix
Sanjay continued, “Think of it like a giant computer game — an infinite game, right? Like in The Matrix.
And there’s a researcher character in the Matrix, and he comes up with theories and models while playing as that character. OK?
So that’s the mind we’re talking about. It’s like a virtual mind — a domain.
A domain that only exists within the bigger domain of the game itself, which in turn exists in the computer — the Master computer.
The mind of God, as it were.”
“But this is real!” Julian exclaimed.
“A real dream, yes. I agree.” Sanjay replied calmly.
“Agh!” Julian said, exasperated at what seemed simple and obvious to his friend, yet presented endless loopholes and problems to his mind. The questions sprouted like mushrooms — faster than he could even verbalize them.
“So, so… let me get this straight…” He held his hands out in front of him, rigid, like holding a box, and stared intensely into it.
"Not separate... hmm..." Julian said, puzzled, not quite able to picture it yet.
Sanjay was patient, having seen his companion like this countless times — especially during late-night brainstorming sessions (or “BS sessions,” as their friends would call them) back in the dorm room days. The way Julian’s mind worked, he needed to see everything. That made him a brilliant researcher, but sometimes difficult to deal with — especially when he demanded explanations in terms so literal they could be drawn on a whiteboard. Fortunately, Sanjay knew this well, having also lived through the grueling months of Julian’s dissertation period.
“So do we mean... like Russian dolls?" Julian said finally, emphasizing the last word.
“Too literal. Like... levels, you could say,” Sanjay replied with more certainty.
"That sounds like a theory to me..."
"No, no — just a metaphor. Don’t take it so seriously."
“Stop saying that!” Julian retorted, then chuckled, softening the edge. “But our theories are metaphors!”
“Aye aye aye. No. Look — it's like levels of description. It’s a way of talking, of communicating. They are … like tools. We aren't meant to make a theory out of it. Or a model. We’re not going to write a fucking equation, right? Pardon my Greek.
Yes, our theories are metaphors — but that doesn’t mean every metaphor is a theory!"
He was more animated now, his voice catching Julian’s energy.
"Got you." suddenly Julian said, as if the penny dropped. He looked serious.
Sanjay was used to this too — the sudden collapse of resistance, as if a quantum wave field had reached a folding point and a new natural state had popped into existence.
Still, Julian’s brow was deeply furrowed as he stared intently into space at the edge of the garden, as if it might contain an animal ready to pounce on him.
“You look doubtful.”
“Yeah, well — and I admit I am a worrier, as you know — but what if it turns out that, just like how an indirect proof was made for non-local quantum fields and effects with Bell’s Theorem, some genius comes forth with a theory about consciousness... proving non-local effects?”
“No. Won’t happen,” Sanjay said cryptically.
“How do you know?!”
“Look, you’re still mixing up domains, descriptions, ways of talking.
Consciousness isn't an effect. It isn’t a phenomenon. It—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You just said it — you just admitted that everything we’re doing is wrong!
If it’s not a phenomenon, then what the hell are we doing?!”
By now he was standing, waving his arms.
“We are just playing.”
“What?!” Julian stood with his hands on his hips, wide-eyed, staring at his friend.
“Yeah. Playing with models and theories. Why not? Can’t hurt. We might come up with something. Win a prize. We might...”
"But if none of it is really true."
"I didn't say that. It's as true as anything else here. But it’s true about the mind, not about consciousness."
“Ah. Ah ha. OK. Now there’s a nugget. What do you mean by ‘mind’ exactly?”
“Well, these theories and models describe what appears in consciousness — any kind of so-called ‘direct’ experience, such as perceptions: vision, sound, taste, smell, touch, bodily sensations... and also thoughts and feelings, including imagination. Feelings being, more or less, sensations and thoughts in a loop, you could say.
But none of that says anything about the consciousness in which — and out of which — they seem to appear.”
“In this dream,” he said sardonically, glaring at the ocean.
“Yeah. A dream ocean, a dream lunch, and a dream theory. And a dream reward. Why not?”
Julian gave a large sigh and sat down.
“OK. So you are making a distinct…” he paused to try and picture it. “of saying ‘mind’ is the… elements that appear in consciousness, and… that’s what we are theorizing about. Not the field, so to speak, the consciousness itself.”
“Yes, but again you are making on object of consciousness, as if it were out there. It’s not, it what you are, in essence, in truth, if you just look at you direct experience. Right now. Are you conscious?”
“I see.”
“Well? Answer the question.”
“What?”
“Are you conscious?”
“Uh, Yes.”
“OK. There you go.”
“There you go… what?”
“Now you know what consciousness is. Not as a concept or as an object. You admitted you are it. Not by hearsay, or thinking about it. Directly. There’s no going further or farther back than that. It’s real. You see? Now you know what reality is.”
“I … guess. But, OK, I have consciousness. I am consciousness. So what. I mean, I don’t see the point.”
“Ah, Stop right there. Who has this consciousness? You are already adding something that isn’t there. An interpretation, an owner. That comes after.”
“Well, I have this consciousness. I own… oh, I see what you mean. Suddenly there are two entities. Consciousness and the one that has it or is it.
Wow. That is a trip.”
“A trip indeed. Without a destination.”
“OK. But I mean, I still have to ask. What can we do with that?”
“Nothing. No need to. And as far as a point, like you were asking. It’s freeing. There isn’t a point. But it stops all the speculation. The stupid questions that go nowhere. And it’s fun.”
“Yeah, yeah, but listen — what if—”
“Here we go again,” Sanjay said in his thick, self-mocking Indian accent.
Julian let out a brief half-chuckle.
“What if...” Julian said, still serious, but reining himself in a bit. “Like I was starting to say — somebody comes out with a theory that says consciousness can’t possibly be local. Then all our work is out the window.” He drew out the word all for several seconds.
“You aren’t getting it. No such theory is possible.”
“Why?!”
“It’s not a phenomenon.”
“Oh jeez. Here we go again — around in circles.”
“You’re going in circles. Not me.”
Next: On the Emergence of Consciousness
Berggruen Prize Essay Competition Entry, Part 3
All photographs ©2017–2025 Eric Platt. All rights reserved.