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This is a really interesting thought experiment.
Definitely I sometimes feel like my consciousness is not controlling my body (think of how you might act sometimes with a really strong emotion), but I think you're meaning on an even higher level.
A couple of things come to mind.
Just so you know if you feel like you're not controlling your body you could be experiencing derealisation.
I had a challenge to this idea, but after I thought about it more I'm going to take it in a different direction.
Consciousness seems to be an emergent behavior of at least some complex systems (what systems qualify is unknown). Just sticking with my own neurons, each neuron simply reacts to the signals sent to it and then sends out it's own signal. No neuron has the full context or is necessarily even aware that it's playing part in my own consciousness. Even I don't have the full context of what's happening in my brain.
If we extrapolate this to group behaviors then we can't assume any greater consciousness is any smarter than it's parts.
I don't think there's any reason to assume there's something that it's like to be an individual cell. Consciousness probably needs a certain level of ability to process information for it to emerge, and I doubt cells reach this level. I mean, they could, but I wouldn't make that assumption.
In order to extend the logic all humanity would be part of a hive mind.
That's such a weird concept, definitely a shower thought. I like the idea of it, even though it's very unlikely. We might never know... That's the same vibe as with the "we're in a simulation" theory. Hard to prove or disprove.
You do make a good point, and what you suppose is entirely possible, but personally I don’t agree with this interpretation:
…isn’t it a little too self aggrandizing to think that we have a near infinite layering of consciousness beneath us and then it just stops at our level of awareness?
Nah. I think the perspective that our awareness is the “top” is what lets us make the best of ourselves. If everyone’s attitude was “well, I’m no better than a pancreas, so fuck it” we’d all be lazy and depressed.
Still, though, I think it’s an interesting observation.
But "fuck it" does not by definition follow, even if we're pancreases. You might, for example, take pride in being a really good pancreas. And pancreases arguably have more structured purpose than most people feel--they are very definably serving a greater whole, whereas it's not always clear how we are doing so, short of intentional effort.
You’re right. I like this idea better!
Please bear in mind that I was in a pretty negative headspace when I wrote this post yesterday! On most days, I’d wager that it is in the best interest of each higher entity to nurture and support the lower entities because they need each other to exist.
In other words I wouldn’t be able to enjoy life if my heart was in constant pain or simply gave out. Likewise, the heart would have more trouble doing its thing if I chose to never exercise, only eat fried foods, etc.
I’d like to think that each layer “desires” an equilibrium and harmony.
Hey, I was in a pretty negative headspace when I read it!
The closest comparison I can think of is being part of a job I liked. I wasn’t the boss, or part of the management team. I was at the bottom, but I knew I was good at my job and reliable. I liked the people I worked with. Not even a remotely glamorous job, but doing it well made me feel good. It didn’t matter, but it mattered, ya know?
I do know! As my favorite job in the world thus far has been delivering Chinese food ☺️.
I hope that you’re feeling better today! Apologies if my post sent you further down into negativity yesterday.
Not at all. Everything’s cool!
Thanks! I guess my main point is that at every layer each conscious entity is not aware of the more complex conscious entity above it. If a heart knew that it works tirelessly to beat 2.5 billion times in an average lifetime only to support a (typically) ungrateful higher consciousness that gets to experience joy, happiness, flavor, touch, scent etc while the heart experiences none of it... it may consider stopping beating. It's in the best interest of the higher consciousness to keep the lower consciousness beating along for as long as possible while being essentially in the dark.
It’s probably good that we’re unaware, then. I don’t want to know what I’m missing!
All things are a little bit alive/conscious even innanimate things like vibrating guitar strings, grains of sand blowing in the wind, and photons of light traveling the cosmos. They aren't quite as conscious as say a living organism but they still in experience things and interact with the rest of reality. They may even have a meager ability to feel emotion after after a few billion years of existence, you never know. microorganisms almost certainly do have basic emotions like hunger, relief from eating, and a instinctual fear of death/getting eaten, though a scientist would argue against such an idea till they were blue in the face. Your individual cells are also alive and experience a whole unseen life individually, they are a little bit conscious though not as conscious as 'you' as a whole.
Psychadellics can allow your consciousness to expand and telepathically connect with the universal conciousness of reality from which all other conciousness is ultimately born from and returns to, sometimes called the godhead in daoist philosophy but I think of it as a paradoxical being both an individual that split split itself into countless parts to go through every aspect of experience seeing through the eyes and feeling the feelings of everything in reality. Every conciousness in reality also harmonizes and comes together to form the godhead, the universal conciousness.