Is consciousness local?
The idea of a ‘universal consciousness’ is just a way to acknowledge that there is “something” “out there” and still avoiding a personal God. But the problem with a universal consciousness is that, at the very least, it becomes very personal and local to the individual! It also, if you haven’t noticed, provides some very opposing viewpoints. It fits far more with both logic and experience to understand that consciousness is individual. Apes and dogs and horses and other animals with complex nervous systems are, after all, also conscious. Are they ‘tapping in?’ If so, why do they depend entirely on instinct for survival? Even the parent training the young is instinctive. So what we call consciousness, in regard to humans, is an individual thing — an awareness and ability to choose and to react to the world around us. Self-consciousness does seem to be uniquely human, but general consciousness appears to be something all animals with complex nervous systems, lungs, and blood have. And s
