The There That Wasn't There: Consciousness as substrate, from a prison cell to the first light of the cosmos
George Wanjau
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) September 24, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22926588 (opens in new tab)
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AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that stable entities of experience and cosmology are "held forms"—patterns of relation that have stabilized enough to persist, hold a boundary, and be located—and proposes that consciousness is best understood as presence without objecthood, the ground in which held forms arise. The author extends this speculative process metaphysics to cosmic structure formation, treats the "Big Bang" as a reified concept, and draws a parallel between the search for dark matter and the search for neural correlates of consciousness. |
Abstract
This essay argues that the stable entities of experience and cosmology are held forms: patterns of relation that have stabilized enough to persist, hold a boundary, and be located. It begins with cases where those anchors loosen: sensory deprivation, long contemplative retreats, near-death experiences, and the involuntary LSD dosing of James "Whitey" Bulger under MK-Ultra. In each, the certainty of the external world drains away while the occurring of experience stays immediate. This inversion of certainty motivates a distinction between the "there," a stabilized reference point, and the "not-there," difference that has not yet stabilized into anything locatable. Drawing on process philosophy (Whitehead, Spinoza), phenomenology (Heidegger), Madhyamaka thought, and Russellian arguments about the limits of structural description, the essay proposes that consciousness is best understood as presence without objecthood, and that this makes it the most fitting name for the ground in which held forms arise. The account is extended to cosmic structure formation, to the "Big Bang" as a reified concept, and to the parallel between the search for dark matter and the search for the neural correlates of consciousness. The work is speculative process metaphysics, offered as a coherent interpretation, not an empirical finding.