Barušs’s Meaning Fields

Psychologist Imants Barušs proposes a transcendent theory of consciousness that takes into account anomalous phenomena, altered states, and quantum field theories, and in which “meaning fields” play a special role (Barušs, 2010, 2018, 2019, 2021).

Barušs begins by differentiating five distinct meanings of consciousness: registration, processing, and acting upon information; explicit knowledge of one’s situation; awareness characterized by intentionality; consciousness as a sense of existence of the subject of mental acts; and consciousness as participation in a shared plan (Barušs, 1987). Barušs reports that researchers’ underlying beliefs shape their definitions of consciousness: “Beliefs range along a material–transcendent dimension … those with more transcendent beliefs tend to have a more rational and curious approach … transcendent beliefs are also associated with greater intelligence” (Barušs, 2008).

Beyond Scientific Materialism

Barušs urges moving “beyond scientific materialism” and integrating quantum theory and anomalous experiences into a transcendent theory of consciousness: “It is time to move beyond scientific materialism and develop transcendent theories of consciousness. Such theories should minimally meet the following criteria: they should be based on all of the usual empirical data concerning consciousness, including altered states of consciousness; they should take into account data about anomalous phenomena and transcendent states of consciousness; they should address the issue of existential meaning and provide soteriological guidance; and they should be consistent with the most accurate theories of physical manifestation, such as relativistic quantum field theories” (Barušs, 2010).

As to deep ontology of consciousness, Barušs speculates that “within a quantum-theoretic context, consciousness could be inserted as a primitive element into reality by providing a role for intention in the selection process of observables, the collapse of the state vector, or the ordering of quantum fluctuations.” But consciousness, he continues, “could be more fundamental, in the sense of a deep consciousness coinciding with a pre-physical substrate [akin to Bohm’s implicate order], from which intention shapes both mental experience and physical manifestation” (Barušs, 2010).

The Concept of Meaning Fields

Barušs explores “extending the attributes of mind to non-sentient aspects of the physical universe” and develops the concept of “meaning fields.” In his telling, “Meaning fields are fields in the technical sense that they are defined at each point in space and time and potentially apply to whatever is found in that space at that time. They are meaning fields in that they are capable of denotative and connotative meaning, as well as, probably, inherent meaning and possibly existential meaning” (Barušs, 2018).

He constructs a sophisticated, though speculative, edifice by defining denotative and connotative meaning. “‘Denotative meaning’ refers to the events that are signified by a representation of them, so that, for example, the meaning field for a hydrogen atom would apply to actual hydrogen atoms. ‘Connotative meaning’ refers to associations of denotated events, so that a meaning field for hydrogen atoms could operate in the context of all atoms and subatomic processes” (Barušs, 2018).

At this point, Barušs brings in experience and qualia. “‘Existential meaning’ refers to the notion of existential purposiveness in the context of existential qualia. If a meaning field not only has essential nature but experiences that essential nature as itself, then it would have existential qualia. And if such qualia are experienced as being meaningful, then we would have the presence of existential meaning. In the case of hydrogen atoms, their meaning field could have a sense of its own existence and purpose” (Barušs, 2018).

Experiential and Supernatural Capacities

Barušs is not shy to endow meaning fields with experiential and what could be called “supernatural capacity” (at least in the current sense of “natural”). Meaning fields, as he develops it, “create boundaries by parsing events, so that, for example, they ‘know’ which mouse is in Bill’s healing experiment and which one is not.” Barušs stresses, “I intend this in a strong sense, in that meaning fields have the ability to make, possibly non-algorithmic, judgments about what falls under their influence and what does not.

Meaning fields affect reality through whatever mechanism it is that human beings use when they are remote viewing and remote influencing. They structure the form that events take at any level of existence. They are interrelated in that they are both nested and overlapping. They are not only spatially nonlocal, but temporally nonlocal, in that the content of meaning fields can be modified by events from the past or future. Events are ‘tuned’ to one meaning field rather than another” (Barušs, 2018).

Meaning fields can interact directly with human meanings. In this way, human beings can “tune” to different meaning fields as well as modify meaning fields according to some weighting algorithm. The “rules” by which meaning fields function are also meaning fields, which is to say that all meta-levels are meaning fields.

In sum, Barušs’s theory of consciousness is informed by “the gradual proliferation of anomalies in which there appears to be application of knowledge without any apparent physical mechanism through which the knowledge could be applied.” This, he states, “has led me to rethinking the fundamental structure of the universe. By imagining that meaning exists beyond the human in the form of meaning fields, new ways of conceptualizing phenomena become available” (Barušs, 2018).^[1]

Footnote

[1]. For an overview of meaning fields, see Barušs, 2018. For a detailed account, see Chapter 2 of Radical Transformation (Barušs, 2021). A mathematical model of meaning fields using category theory is in Barušs, 2019.