From brain and ego to God, AI, and the larger question of mind in the universe.
Consciousness has an unusual double character. It is the most immediate thing we know—every colour, pain, memory, and thought appears from a first-person point of view—yet it is also one of the hardest things to explain. We can describe brain activity, measure behaviour, and map the systems involved in attention and memory. But why should physical activity be accompanied by experience at all? Why is there something it feels like to be me?
That question connects two older questions I explored in separate articles: if consciousness is caused by the brain, what makes an individual special? And are God and consciousness interchangeable? The first asks about the boundary around the self. The second asks whether individual awareness might be related to something larger. Together they lead to a bigger question: is consciousness fundamentally individual, or could individual minds be expressions of a wider reality?
The puzzle of being someone
Modern neuroscience has established strong links between conscious experience and brain function. Changes in the brain can change perception, memory, attention, the sense of self, and the level of wakefulness. Researchers study neural correlates of consciousness: the brain processes associated with particular experiences and with being conscious. The details remain debated, and competing theories disagree about which mechanisms matter most, but consciousness is not scientifically detached from the brain.
That evidence makes the brain central to any serious account of human consciousness. It does not, by itself, settle every philosophical question about why experience exists. Correlation, causal dependence, and a complete explanation are not the same thing. A map of the mechanisms that accompany seeing red, for example, is not automatically an explanation of why seeing red feels the way it does.
The gap should not be treated as proof of a supernatural answer. An unanswered question is not evidence for whichever explanation we prefer. It is a reason to keep the distinction clear between what research supports, what a theory proposes, and what remains unknown.
The self: a real experience, but perhaps not a separate substance
Our sense of being a distinct person is powerful. We carry a name, a body, a history, preferences, plans, and memories. The brain continuously integrates information about the body and the environment, allowing us to act as one person across changing situations. The self is not simply an illusion that can be dismissed; it is a meaningful feature of human experience and social life.
Yet the feeling of a stable, independent “I” may be constructed and maintained rather than being a single, unchanging object inside us. Memory is selective. Attention shifts. Our personality changes over time. These facts invite a careful distinction: the experience of individuality is real, but our intuitions about what the self ultimately is may be incomplete.
In my earlier article, I used an image of sand shaped into different forms. The forms are distinct, but they share the same material. The analogy captures an intuition about common origin and individual expression. It does not demonstrate that human minds literally share a single substance of consciousness. Its value is to open a question, not to answer it by metaphor alone.
Could consciousness be universal?
Several philosophical positions explore whether mind is more fundamental or more widespread than conventional physicalism suggests. Panpsychism, broadly, treats mentality or experience as a basic feature of nature. Cosmopsychism considers whether the universe as a whole could be fundamental, with individual minds related to it. These are philosophical positions, not established scientific findings, and each faces difficult questions.
One challenge is the relationship between the whole and its parts. If the universe were conscious, how would that explain the particular point of view each person experiences? Why do I experience this stream of awareness and not yours? Conversely, if tiny elements of reality had rudimentary experience, how could those experiences combine into one unified human mind? These are among the difficult questions that any universal-consciousness theory must address.
The ocean analogy from my earlier article makes the intuition vivid: a spoonful of water is made of the same material as the sea, but the spoonful and the ocean are not interchangeable in every respect. Shared substance does not automatically imply shared perspective. Likewise, even if minds were connected at some deep level, it would not follow that your memories, feelings, or point of view were mine.
God and consciousness: identity, metaphor, or hypothesis?
Calling the larger reality “God,” “cosmic intelligence,” or “universal consciousness” can mean different things. For some people, God is a personal creator; for others, the word points to the totality of existence, an ultimate ground of being, or a sacred dimension of life. Universal consciousness is also ambiguous: it might mean that experience is fundamental, that all minds are connected, or that the universe itself has a point of view. These claims should not be treated as synonyms without argument.
If God means the universe itself, the claim may resemble pantheism. If God means a conscious universe, it is closer to some forms of cosmopsychism. If God means a personal being distinct from the universe, the relationship is different again. The language can overlap, but the underlying ideas are not identical.
A metaphor can express awe, humility, or a sense of belonging. It cannot by itself establish that the universe thinks, intends, remembers, or experiences. Those are additional claims that require reasons and, where possible, evidence. Keeping the definitions precise makes the discussion richer rather than less philosophical.
AI changes the question—but does not settle it
Artificial intelligence adds a new test to our intuitions. A system can produce fluent language about pain, identity, or inner life without that performance proving it has subjective experience. Behaviour is evidence worth examining, but it is not a transparent window into consciousness. We need to distinguish convincing self-description from the presence of experience itself.
An interdisciplinary report by Patrick Butlin and colleagues in 2023 examined indicators derived from prominent scientific theories of consciousness and assessed how they might apply to AI. The authors did not conclude that the AI systems they examined were conscious. Their framework illustrates how the question might be investigated more rigorously, while acknowledging uncertainty about the theories and indicators themselves.
If an artificial system someday met credible indicators of consciousness, that would challenge assumptions about what kinds of physical systems can support experience. It would not, on its own, prove that consciousness is universal or that God and consciousness are the same. A new instance of consciousness and a theory of consciousness’s ultimate nature are different things.
AI therefore acts as a conceptual magnifying glass. It forces us to separate intelligence from awareness, convincing self-description from subjective experience, and functional ability from the question of what—if anything—it feels like to be the system.
Three levels of the question
It helps to separate three levels. The first is empirical: what brain processes and behaviours are reliably associated with conscious states? This can be investigated through experiments, clinical observations, and competing scientific models. The second is theoretical: what kind of explanation best accounts for the evidence? Researchers and philosophers disagree, and the disagreement is not resolved by simply choosing the most appealing story.
The third level is metaphysical: what is consciousness ultimately, and is it only a feature of individual organisms or part of a more fundamental reality? Here we encounter views such as physicalism, dualism, panpsychism, and cosmopsychism. Their plausibility depends on their arguments, explanatory power, and compatibility with evidence—not on how comforting or mysterious they sound.
Confusion begins when an answer at one level is treated as if it settled all three. Finding neural correlates does not automatically settle every question about subjective experience. But the difficulty of explaining experience does not establish a universal mind. And an AI that behaves intelligently does not automatically demonstrate consciousness. Each claim needs its own support.
What would count as progress?
Progress may come from better theories that make distinct predictions, more reliable ways to measure conscious states, and clearer definitions of what we mean by “experience,” “self,” and “universal.” It may also come from comparing human consciousness with animal minds and artificial systems without assuming that outward similarity guarantees identical inner states.
A universal-consciousness theory would need to explain not only why minds might belong to a larger reality, but also why each mind has a limited and apparently private perspective. A brain-based theory must continue to explain how physical processes relate to first-person experience. Neither side should be allowed to win simply because the other has unanswered questions.
The most productive attitude is disciplined openness: do not dismiss a possibility merely because it is unfamiliar, but do not promote it to fact because it is beautiful. Wonder is a starting point for inquiry, not a substitute for it.
The mystery remains—but the questions are sharper
Perhaps consciousness is an achievement of particular living brains. Perhaps our current theories are incomplete in ways that will change how we understand mind and matter. Perhaps some version of a more fundamental or universal consciousness will eventually prove philosophically compelling. At present, these possibilities do not have equal evidential standing, and universal consciousness remains a philosophical proposal rather than an established scientific conclusion.
The two older questions still matter. If consciousness depends on the brain, what makes each person special? And if we use the language of God or a universal mind, are we describing reality or expressing an intuition about belonging? The modern answer is not to force these questions into one conclusion. It is to investigate the links between them while respecting their differences.
The deepest insight may be that individuality and connection are not necessarily opposites. We are embodied individuals with distinct histories and perspectives; we are also biologically, socially, and physically connected to a world much larger than ourselves. Whether that connection extends to a universal consciousness remains open. The mystery is real—but so is the responsibility to distinguish what we know from what we hope.
Further reading
- Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems — Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
- Panpsychism — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness — Butlin and colleagues (2023).
Explore the original questions
This article develops two earlier explorations:
- If Consciousness Comes from the Brain, What Makes Me Special? (2018)
- Are God and Consciousness Interchangeable? (2018)