YOU ARE the biggest miracle of all.

The objective and the subjective experience inspire awe, while “YOU ARE” transcends all evidence.

Photo by stefan moertl on Unsplash

The world is a miracle. With every scientific discovery, my appreciation of the wonder grows. My entire scientific career studying the mechanisms of viruses, how they interact with their host cells, and how host organisms attempt to eliminate or at least contain them has continuously increased my admiration of life and the endless creativity of evolution.

My awe for scientific discovery has only been surpassed by my amazement at finding myself a subjective “I AM”.

One might think that the objective reality of the universe would already be enough of a miracle: With all those forms of matter and energy, physical processes and chemical reactions, with self-organizing molecules that learn to multiply, interact, and assemble complex organisms emerging on at least one planet, possibly also on many others. But it is even more than that. Every day I am facing the undeniable reality of subjective experience. I am aware of myself and my surroundings. I find myself an “I AM” who can explore, describe, and try to understand the universe of which I am a part. Why is that so? Is consciousness a surplus invention of the creative process of evolution? Some claim that self-awareness offers survival benefits. I doubt it. Why would a perfectly adapted “zombie” be less fit for survival? Is subjective awareness then just a random kink of evolution, a lucky strike? Is it something that generally emerges at a certain level of complexity and thus may also exist on thousands of other planets? Or is it a unique phenomenon here on Earth?

Talking about uniqueness. Perhaps my experience of “I AM” is unique.

What if consciousness emerged uniquely in me? This sure sounds very narcissistic and megalomaniac, but please stay with me for this thought. There is no conclusive argument to rule out solipsism, the philosophical position assuming that I am the only subjective entity in the world and everything else just appears within my consciousness. Of course, writing this essay, asking potential readers to stay with me, would be utterly absurd for a solipsist philosopher. There would not be any conscious being beside myself able to understand my words and make a decision to continue reading. It would all just be in my mind. My entire life, all science, all experience, an entire universe of solitude.

How can solipsism be refuted? Why do most people consider that philosophical stance pretty crazy and outright wrong? It is because of “YOU ARE”.

If I called the experience of “I AM” more awe-inspiring than all the scientific miracles together, then I have to add that it is rivalled, if not even surpassed by “YOU ARE”. Isn’t it astounding that, except for some odd solipsists, everyone is certain about the existence of an “I AM” in others that we can address as the “YOU ARE”? As for “I AM,” as miraculous as it is, it has one big advantage when it comes to proving itself: I experience it immediately and cannot doubt this experience. It is so close, so obvious, so fundamental that even Descartes, who started his philosophy by doubting everything, recognized it as undeniable reality.

“ARE YOU”? I do not have any direct evidence that there is another “I AM” in somebody else.

Science finds that humans share a set of material, genetic, and physiological features. But, as long as the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” remains unresolved, scientific discovery does not explain or prove the existence of a subjective experience of any being. Science finds complexity, reactions, functions, and mechanisms, but, by the intrinsic nature of the scientific approach, it can only describe them in objective terms. Subjectivity cannot be reduced to objective description. The “Hard Problem” is impenetrable. Science cannot prove “I AM”. The only evidence of “I AM” is my immediate experience.

Despite the lack of objective or subjective evidence for somebody else’s “I AM”, most people don’t doubt the existence of “YOU ARE”.

We spend much of our life’s energy on ways to connect and explore each other’s inner experience. We tell each other stories, we share our feelings, we build connections on so many different levels. The search for “YOU ARE” dominates our lives.

Truth be told, we get deceived a lot. It is a painful lesson when we recognize that a relationship we believed to be with another “I AM” was a fraud.

This happens when one partner ignores the “I AM” in the other. The relation then resembles that with an object. Such transactional relations do not serve the purpose of establishing a mutual connection of “I AMs”. The subjectivity of the other is ignored. The other is objectivized.

The deception can also work the other way round, when inanimate objects are fantasized to have an “I AM”. This illusion is at the core of all magic thinking and animistic spirituality. A popular modern version of such animism is the worship of Artificial Intelligence as conscious. These are misled projections of our own “I AM” onto inanimate objects.

Genuine recognition of “YOU ARE” involves lifelong learning and constitutes the perhaps biggest achievement of life.

Singing, dancing, drawing, and all other forms of art have been humanity’s tools to express their experience of “I AM” and share it with others. So is language that is used to create shared myths and belief systems.

Writing on Medium is well within that tradition of seeking genuine connection. As I write these lines, I refute solipsism and anticipate that you, the reader, connect with your experience of “I AM” to the words that are born from my “I AM”.

“I AM” always seeks the resonance in “YOU ARE”.

Resonance in physics describes a process in which the oscillation of one object is transmitted to another object. This can only happen if both objects involved are capable of the same type of pulsating movement, i.e., they share a “natural frequency”.

It is the resonance between two “I AM” that nurtures the conviction that both partners are self-aware. Resonance proves that individuals share a “natural subjectivity”. The recognition of “YOU ARE” implies that the similarity between humans is not restricted to genes, cells, and neuronal organization, but includes the shared ability of subjective experience.

“YOU ARE” implies that subjectivity, consciousness, is present outside of my own experience of “I AM”.

How far beyond my individual experience does this subjective presence extend? It is easy for most people to resonate with the innerness of their close family, loved ones, their tribe perhaps. It is already more challenging to recognize the “YOU ARE” in a foreigner. How about somebody we hate, or worse, somebody we don’t care for at all? How about pet animals? How about animals we breed for food supply?

On very rare occasions, such as a starry summer night in Greece, or resting after a burdensome hike at the top of a mountain, or gazing at a painting by Van Gogh, I felt a faint resonance as if the entire world was a huge “YOU ARE”.

Was this animistic projection or resonance with a universal “I AM”?