Before a human has reached the age of 4, the part of the brain responsible for memory, the “Temporal Lobe” has not been fully developed, as a result, the brain does not store these childhood memories, a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia (Pillemer, 1989).

Since these memories are not stored, and memory ≠ consciousness (evident from the recognized consciousness of a sedated person, without memory of the event), consciousness is independent of memory. A child is conscious before the age of 4 without the necessary infrastructure for narrative/cognitive memory.

However if there can be a break in consciousness, then this idea is irrelevant. Could not the consciousness of the baby be in the same position as when an adult is without consciousness? A study was published showing evidence that when asleep (or sedated), a person is still conscious and the memories of the experience are not stored (Lee, 2019).

This implies a person will experience consciousness throughout all 3 stages of sleep (or sedation). The experiences of dreams and sleep paralysis (sleeping subjects often do not realize they are physically asleep) are often forgotten after waking or ineffectively recalled by patients when asked.

If there is evidence that human consciousness does not break or is never “interrupted” then this has implications about unconsciousness states.

Implication 1: It is uncertain if consciousness exists before birth since humans are incapable of memory at the time, but don’t know if incapable of consciousness. This complicates the idea that human experience after death will be the same as before birth. Since there is no evidence that consciousness existed or did not exist before birth, the only claim that can be made about consciousness (with any certainty) is that living humans experience it.

Implication 2: Consciousness is independent of memory and the temporal lobe. Although a person does not remember an experience it is accepted that they were conscious at that time. This implies that consciousness can exist without the physical component of memory within the brain, thus consciousness ≠ memory.

Implication 3: (NOTE: This is the craziest implication and the least directly supported, but still interesting)

Consciousness might not be a product of the physical infrastructure of the brain. If the experience of consciousness is independent of some physical structures it might be independent of all physical structures. If it cannot be proven that consciousness does not exist before birth and/or can be interrupted, it is uncertain if it is interrupted via death. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that disqualifies the possibility that death could be a continued state of consciousness without any of the experiences provided by the brain (memory, joy, pain, sigh, time passage, etc.) or some form of it.

Author NOTE: The 3rd one is the most far-reaching idea but I found it to be thought-provoking. If it is to unsubstantiated to you ignore it in place of the first 2 implications.

I would be really interested to hear what people think, please let me know and thanks for reading.

References

Lee, M., Baird, B., Gosseries, O. et al. Connectivity differences between consciousness and unconsciousness in non-rapid eye movement sleep: a TMS–EEG study. Sci Rep 9, 5175 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41274-2

Pillemer, D. B., & White, S, H. (1989). Childhood events recalled by children and adults. In H. W. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (Vol. 21, pp. 297–340). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. ISBN 9780120097210, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2407(08)60291-8.

Thompson, E. (2017). Dreamless Sleep, the Embodied Mind, and Consciousness: The Relevance of a Classical Indian Debate to Cognitive Science. University of British Columbia. doi: 10.31231/osf.io/d9gqa

Thompson, E., 2014, Waking, dreaming, being: Self and consciousness in neuroscience, meditation, and philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press.

Windt, J.M., T. Nielsen, and E. Thompson, 2016, “Does consciousness disappear in dreamless sleep?”, Trends in cognitive sciences, 20(12): 871–882.