Between Birth and Dissolution — Two Poles of Silent Consciousness Part I

When we think of consciousness, we most often imagine it as something stable, defined, pulsating with logical clarity. An inner voice that says “this is me” — a voice, perhaps, shaped by millions of years of evolution, rising from the darkness of primitive reactions. But there are moments — at both ends of human life — when that voice falls silent. And what remains then? What is left when the “I” either cannot yet speak, or can no longer do so?

I imagine two forms of consciousness, like two shadows submerged in different waters. One — in the mother’s womb — drifts through a dense, warm ocean of signals, where there are no words, only rhythms, lights, pressures, and sounds. The other — confined to a hospital bed, cut off from language and response — sinks into a silence that isn’t emptiness, but a question: is anyone still there? Is it just a body, or are there still echoes of a “self”?

These two beings — the unborn and the unresponsive — are separated by the span of a human life, but they share something essential: consciousness without language. Un-verbalised, and yet existing. Uncertain of itself, but responsive. Alive in a way that escapes our instruments.

I have a quiet conversation with myself about this, and I ask:

— Is it possible to exist without an “I”?
— Maybe the “I” isn’t the beginning, but a later effect. Maybe consciousness starts earlier, as a map of sensations, and only afterward does the observer emerge.
— And if so, then who perceives before language arises?
— The one who feels. Not the one who speaks. The one who senses warmth, cold, light, the trembling of skin. The one who does not know they exist — but exists all the same.

Neuroscientist Christof Koch has written that consciousness is inextricably tied to subjective experience — to the fact that something is an experience for someone. Even if that someone is only a forming organism, with no memory and no reflection. Meanwhile, philosopher Thomas Metzinger goes further and proposes that the “self” is a model generated by the brain — a simulation we use to survive the world. But even before that model is constructed, the body already feels. And maybe — even then — we are present, nameless, but real.

In the womb, the child comes to know the world through vibrations, through rhythm — and perhaps the very first form of thought is pulsating touch. Is that already consciousness? Not the kind we recognise in adulthood, but something more primitive. Proto-consciousness. The flicker of being.

At the other pole, there is a human whose brain systems are severely damaged, who no longer speaks or reacts, and yet whose body remains. And sometimes — as research by Professor Adrian Owen has shown — fMRI scans reveal traces of responses to a familiar name, to the image of a loved one, to a question. Not always. Not clearly. But sometimes… something moves.

So perhaps consciousness doesn’t vanish like a light switched off. Perhaps it disperses like fog, passing through the cracks of perception, leaving behind its final patterns.

Within that mist — between first sensation and last breath — lies the full spectrum of being. Where language has not yet begun, and where it has already ended, we may encounter the true borders of consciousness: not as an intellectual act, but as a lived presence in the world. Without words, without concepts, but with the body as antenna.

“Consciousness is not something we have. It’s something that happens,” wrote Susan Blackmore. And if that is true, perhaps it is worth asking: can we honour those forms of consciousness that remain silent? Can we listen to those who do not yet speak — and to those who no longer can?

Not to put words in their mouths — but to acknowledge that they were, that they are, that they feel.

It is not voice that defines consciousness.
It is presence.

It is a hand resting on the mother’s belly.
It is the gentle pressure on the fingers of an old man who can no longer reply, but who may still be dreaming.

These are two poles of the same spark.
Not yet born.
Not fully extinguished.
But still — somehow — here.

by: Dice Algorithms

#mindfulness #healing #consciousness #question #humannature