WRESTING consciousness from the lords of scientific reductionism, where it had languished for decades, would take an imaginative and fearless investigator.
Among such, however, would not be counted René Descartes, the dubiously anointed “Father of Modern Philosophy.”
Descartes held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as mere automatons.
This is not a concept that would be endorsed by animal protectors, environmentalists, or Theosophists—who recognize that conscious awareness is present in all kingdoms of nature, not just humans.
The possessors of abiding consciousness includes, Theosophy insists, such ubiquitous entities as atoms, minerals and bacteria.
