Hi Laurence,
Why write a nine page essay when you captured it so well in a paragraph?
Yes, I postulate the consciousness field as primordial, embodying the attributes of consciousness: awareness plus volition. The field in and of itself, while physical, would seem to harbor nothing but a vague self-awareness, certainly no 'thoughts' or logic. After investigating possible dynamics, I've concluded that the most feasible interaction with matter is through sensing momentum density, and applying force to matter in motion. With this simple capability dead rocks remain dead rocks; the field is effectively unaware of dead matter. But the myriad flows inside living cells are sensed by the local field and potentially 'guided'. Thus, while extensive awareness of the details of molecular biology of the cell, embryo-genesis, and the immune system convince many that evolution is exceedingly unlikely to produce life as we know it, the locally self-aware 'organism-plus-field' has a thumb on the scales, so to speak. Thoughts and memories, etc are bound to the brain, but awareness of thinking, and of all else we associate with consciousness is effectively attributed to the field, which 'reads' the dynamic 'map' of reality that is the brain.
By the time neural nets, with inherent logic ability and pattern recognition ability, have evolved, the local field, always aware of Now, is coupled to flows which are coupled through sense organs to the environment, and hence the field, inherently self-aware, is aware of the local individual and his/her environment. The awareness is associated with the field, but the intelligence (thinking) depends on the logical network the field is coupled to, and specifically to the 'paths' that have been learned by the brain through repetition. There are far more details supporting this theory than can be included in a comment, and the essay had to deal with so many other issues. A key detail is that momentum density stimulates or enhances the field, essentially inducing greater self-awareness, thus associating the local field with the local brain, so that the effect is an individual conscious of himself, and 'anchoring' the enhanced local field density to the same individual over time.
There are un-countable 'aware' organisms on earth, from gnats to mankind. This would argue that, if consciousness 'emerges' from matter, it must be a fairly simple phenomenon, since it's everywhere. But sophisticated searches for such "minimal mechanisms" have come up empty. A primordial field solves this problem, and also means that consciousness is inherent in the universe, not an artifact or an after-thought. And it jives with the experience of consciousness reported by many thousands of individuals, as related in the essay.
Thanks for a close reading and an excellent summarization.
My best regards
Edwin Eugene Klingman