A most interesting topic, and a very good question. Thanks for posting it. Some thoughts...

It would seem that most people at some point wonder if the energy of consciousness which they feel flowing through them, is perhaps the tip of an immense iceberg of infinite awareness. Like someone looking at a glass of water and pondering the notion that each of the molecules in that glass have had over a million mile and million year journey through the clouds, oceans, rivers, and puddles. And have been part of the bodies of countless humans and other animals. And hopefully this thought won't make the person too nauseous to take a sip of that water. (lol!)

As for the "one electron universe" theory, the link you provided is intriguing. Pondering Quantum questions seems to dissolve my mind in a wonderful if slightly disorienting way. Like running a race, then after "hitting the wall" of the body's limit, experiencing a "runners high". Whether i understand any of it is another matter entirely. I best stick to familiar terms, like the tribal person gazing up at an airplane, what he calls an "iron bird".

There may be a correlation between consciousness and identity, as concerning human thought and the scope of one's particular awareness. I am wondering about the limits placed on who/what we think we are, and its effect on consciousness. In a recent thread i posted some thoughts on the matter. They may or may not be relevant here:




There seems to be in the human mind some balance of "self" and "beyond self", one could say. Is there an optimal balance point of these two extremes (or a general range at least) where humans may happily dwell, so to speak? Or can each of the levels of personal and transpersonal awareness be adjusted independently in one's mind, in a way like one adjusts the treble and bass levels of a stereo music system? In this analogy, if the personal compares to the treble level and the transpersonal compares to the bass level, has the average current mental state become too "trebley", an isolated cul-de-sac? And if so, what could remedy the possible imbalance?

If there are more questions than answers at this point, hopefully there is some fire behind all the smoke. Thank you for reading these thoughts. I appreciate any responses to them, as well as to the original post.

Is this position already known in the literature? — Babbeus

The field of transpersonal psychology would probably be the most scientific examination of these questions. (Whatever what one may happen to think of the results of their research and experiments).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology

Other related topics would include non-dualistic philosophy, Advaita Vedanta, philosophical Taoism,
and Buddhism. Also, possibly the theory of the Noosphere.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere

Is this position already known in the literature?
What do you think about it? — Babbeus

The first paper on this page, 'Idealism without God', outlines such a view: http://yetterchappell.net/Helen/papers.html

The subject has too much literature to mention here. My own belief is our existence is paradoxically both united and divided, one and legion. Electrons have provided some of the evidence for this with their particle like aspect being considered indivisible, yet, their wave-like is infinitely divisible.

Babbeus
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Maybe you already heard about the one electron universe: it is the idea that the apparantly multiple identical electrons could just be several occurrence of the same electron traveling in time and space and interacting with itself.

I was considering the analogous model about consciousnesses/self: there seem to be several completely separate consciousnesses but they could be all occurrences of the same consciousness interacting with itself. In every single occurrence within a brain the consciousness only has access to the local available memory and sensory data so it cannot know anything about having experienced other occurrences in other bodies/brains/forms. If "you" become "me" for a while and then you come back to "you" again you wouln't realize anything, you just would have access to the continuous streaming of memory of your brain, so in principle there could be a same consciousness that travels throught everyone of our brain interacting with her own occurrences without having any awareness of this.

What is good in this model:

It has similar advantages to the one electron universe: it reduces the number of entities and solves the problem of why are there so many consciousnesses.
It solves the problem about how consciousnesses could start and stop existing from nothing.

Is this position already known in the literature?
What do you think about it? — Babbeus

You are clearly anthropomorphizing and multiplying entities beyond necessity.

Maybe you already heard about the one electron universe: it is the idea that the apparantly multiple identical electrons could just be several occurrence of the same electron traveling in time and space and interacting with itself . . . — Babbeus

When I read something like this, my first thought is always, "Why the heck would we believe that?"

Of course, as I read, I saw that you gave an answer to this:

It has similar advantages to the one electron universe: it reduces the number of entities and solves the problem of why are there so many consciousnesses.
It solves the problem about how consciousnesses could start and stop existing from nothing.

Those, as reasons to believe something like this, strike me as us making up something that seems ridiculous in order to explain "problems" that don't even strike me as at all being problems. They strike me as akin to us going out to the barn, seeing that there's a hole in a bucket, feeling that the hole in the bucket is inexplicable for some reason, and then coming up with something like, "Well, you see, there's this alien named Franklebortz from another dimension who zips around, invisible-like, to various women's locker rooms around the universe, but sometimes he's a bit off-course, and depending on where he lands, the splobonium firearm he wears on a holster has been known to brush up against things and put a hole into them (it's just one of those unusual properties of splobonium). So that explains not just our bucket's hole, but every hole that occurs (he's actually off course a lot--if only he wouldn't drink so much)"

That should seem ridiculous, but I think that's what we often do, including, unbelievably with increasing frequency, in the sciences.

I don't know why it's supposed to be a positive thing to reduce the number of entities, so that we have just one electron instead of a gazillion of them.

And I don't know why it would seem to be a problem that there are many different consciousnesses and that they only occur in certain situations and not others.

And even if I did think those things were problems, to believe something like "there's just one electron that travels "through time and space 'interacting with itself'" I'd need something that would count as pretty direct evidence of there being just one electron that travels "through time and space 'interacting with itself'." That I could use it to explain something apparently completely unrelated to that that I don't otherwise know how to explain doesn't count as a good reason for belief in my book.

You are clearly anthropomorphizing and multiplying entities beyond necessity.

It is the opposite: I am reducing a moltitude of entities to a single one, just like the one electron universe does with electrons.

I am aware you think that this is the case, but you have added additional response variables to your explanatory variable.

Let me break it down step by step

This is your explanatory, it is what you are saying explains the other variables:

A= one electron universe

These are your responses, what is being explained by the one electron universe:

B= multiple identical electrons could just be several occurrence of the same electron traveling in time and space and interacting with itself.

C= several completely separate consciousnesses but they could be all occurrences of the same consciousness interacting with itself.

See you have added another variable, by saying A explains C. There is no justification for adding C.