Everything that exists has Being, has God-essence, has some degree of consciousness. Even a stone has rudimentary consciousness; otherwise, it would not be, and its atoms and molecules would disperse. Everything is alive. The sun, the earth, plants, animals, humans — all are expressions of consciousness in varying degrees, consciousness manifesting

As science becomes more unified, it is to be hoped that we can explain consciousness as well as idealized physical situations, following the current threads of quantum mechanics that have made it clear that the observer’s decisions are closely linked to the evolution of physical systems.

Consciousness was not some substance in the brain but rather emerged from the complex relationships between the subject and the world. It was part alchemy, part illusion, a collaborative effort that obliterated our standard delineations between self and other. As Brooks put it, “Intelligence is in the eye of the observer.” —