Nader’s All There Is

Transcendental Meditation leader (and former neuroscientist) Tony Nader states “there is nothing other than consciousness, and that matter and the multiplicity of loci of consciousness, us, for one, are nothing but consciousness experiencing itself from limited perspectives that hide the true nature of both the observer and the observed.” In a world of an infinite number of simultaneously existing possibilities, Nader says “one fact seems undeniable: the fact of our own awareness … Commonly, this awareness is called consciousness: the observer, the witness, the experiencer” (Nader, n.d.).

Nader states formally, “Consciousness is all there is and does not create anything physical outside itself; matter is real only in terms of consciousness or as an appearance within consciousness.” While “Consciousness is all there is” and “Consciousness is One” are his foundation, Nader acknowledges that “there are different kinds of consciousness: different flavors, states, levels, and so on. The only way for these two statements to be simultaneously true, he says, is that the one Consciousness has different flavors, states, and experiences of itself” (Nader, 2015).

Consciousness as All and One

While acknowledging that other Idealism theorists suggest similar, Nader differentiates his approach by providing “a carefully constructed and cogent model for how those limited perspectives in all their subjective richness emerge within the singularity of consciousness.” He claims “a monistic field theory of consciousness” as the most primordial field, which then can “potentially solve enduring problems in other fields, including quantum field theory and the psychology of higher states of consciousness” (Nader, n.d.).

Mathematical Framework and Observer Triples

Nader's distinguishing proposal is to place consciousness “in a mathematical framework by introducing fundamental axioms that are motivated by the experience and dynamics of consciousness.” By systematizing how human awareness perceives, discriminates, organizes, and expresses its own patterns of functioning, mathematical methods and mathematical modeling provide “one of the most useful and scientifically manageable methods to study the interface between consciousness and physical phenomena.” Mathematics is seen as “the precise abstract representation of consciousness at work.”

Nader claims “to test the reasonableness of these axioms in two ways: by deriving consequences from the axioms and comparing these consequences to our experience of the world, and by verifying that heretofore unsolved problems can be resolved with this new paradigm.” In particular, he ambitiously addresses how the physical universe emerges from consciousness.

Nader introduces “the notion of a Bit of Consciousness as a triple of particular values of Observerhood, Observinghood, and Observedhood,” with the understanding that “nothing can be said to be real unless it is a triple with none of its components equal to 0. In other words, real existence requires an observer, a process of observation, and an observed” (Nader, 2015).

In Nader's consciousness model, it is not non-localized or localized objects that are the issue. Rather, it is the idea of the very existence of objects as entities independent of Consciousness that is the root of the problem. In his model, nothing exists outside the realm of observer, observed, and process of observation (Nader, 2015).