[austintorn@aol.com]

Awareness or consciousness, seems to only be able to observe the self, actually only that part of the self that is on display as the contents of the mind at any given moment.

This awareness, intimately known and referred to by us as ‘I’ (Capital ‘I’ in single quotes), or even the soul, by some, is the part of us that is free to be, for it cannot act (do); it can only observe. It is the audience, the witness. We are all familiar with ‘I’, almost taking it for granted, for we note not the sea in which we “see”. When ‘I’ looks at the contents of the mind, note that ‘I’ is not itself the contents of the mind—yes, we often confuse what’s floating in the stream of consciousness—objects of thought—with the water itself—awareness. It is famously said that ‘I’ am not this body... ‘I’ am not even this thought, nor am ‘I’ the contents of the mind, and that ‘I’ may even a part of space-time itself, made of the fundamental substance. So, ‘I’ am not an object. ‘I’ am the universal subject. ‘I’ could even be the ultimate—the Cosmos itself.

However, being subjects only, all ‘I’s are interchangeable, and, as such, may then be more a part of space-time than of us as individuals, our total uniqueness of personhood being formed at birth, through our life, and lost at death, although the “soul” may live on, as some say, sort of, in an unperceptive immortality, that is, if it was always part of the Cosmos to begin with.

Indeed, it seems that Awareness would have little or nothing to do if there were not something for it to be aware of, and, so, of course, there is much to be aware of while we live our lives, although one can certainly realize pure awareness by going into the selfless meditative state of pure being by removing all of one’s thoughts, for meditation is “not what you think”. But, then, after we die, I’m afraid that would be the end of any unique and enduring personal identity, although, some may be happy to know, that their awareness might ever endure in rejoining—if it never left—the eternal substance at large in the Cosmos in its immortal, but non-perceiving reality, for what’s to see without the brain’s sense collection, memories and associations? Ditto for the time before we were born. What was my soul doing for an eternity before I was born? Probably not much. What will it do after I die, with no mind, no brain, no memories, no senses, no feelings? Probably not much. Well, perhaps I can still still save the “soul” for some with my last ditch efforts herein, although I don’t much believe it myself , but, as you see, not much would be left of it and it would have practically no value beyond its pure being, with no thoughts happening, but, maybe that’s not too bad, for some with bad lives, for, as in meditation, we totally escape all existence.

So, it seems that the Cosmos itself comes alive in us through mind, matter, or both. Mind and matter, if separate seeming, are really the two opposite sides of the same coin of Information, awareness providing the ultimate glimpse of cosmic information from the inside—and matter providing it from the outside, especially in quantum physics, although in a limited way, when Mother Nature slips up and reveals her true and counterintuitive self.

Indeed, minds, too, seem to sense in another dimension, trying out new ideas through ideas through scenarios of consequences, collapsing possibilities into the one reality that we “choose”. Consciousness could be the mysterious agent which focuses the spread out quantum ‘object’s’ waves of existence so we can observe them at one place as the objects of thought.

As for our accepted version of reality, it exists in it’s usual form only in the brain’s simulation model of reality, the VERY SAME model employed in our night dreams, when the model is driven only by noise, static, and memory, but in a stunning and realistic virtual reality that is usually indistinguishable from real waking reality, aside from lucid dreaming in which one realizes s/he is having a dream—perhaps the ultimate experience of life. Yes, all we ever “see” are the insides of our heads, our reality referred back out whence the waves, vibrations, or fields may have come from, and probably did come from in our wide-awake dream— one that comes from real external input, I hope, if we are not asleep and dreaming, although its ultimate source may be who knows where. We see colors, like red, let’s say, but there are no colors out there, really, just differing frequencies of light waves and reflective properties of surfaces. Furthermore, the brain maintains color even in unusual lighting conditions. The same is true with sound waves, taste, smell, and vision. All reality is fabricated by the brain, as we can tell by feeling the texture of a surface by scratching it with a pencil—it is referred to the end of the pencil even though we have no sense organs way out there, although, it is all hopefully fabricated in a way that is useful to us, such as when the wings of a hang glider are felt as an actual extension of the arms.

Yes, reality is painted with the forms that we are made to see, but, what’s really out there? Waves, fields, interference patterns? Even the brain’s processing time, speedy as it seems, is hidden from us, our consciousness itself being referred back in time a bit, like the tape-delay used by live TV shows.

As for time itself, we only experience it and its apparent rate as a succession of events appearing over the horizon of consciousness, this succession of frames exposing our living film into an illusion of fluid motion.

Well, many have tried to dissect consciousness, confine it, reduce it to something else, but, it remains fairly intractable. I suggest that it is irreducible just because it is so fundamental and, thus, cannot be explained in terms of more basic entities, nor can it be located since it lies beyond our spatial dimensions. It is as if the intrinsic properties underlying physical dispositions are themselves experiential properties of some hidden dimension, and permeate everything that there is, both mind and matter. Experience is perhaps a fundamental property of the universe. Materialism’s inability to explain how mind could arise from supposedly inert and non-experiential matter stems from its faulty premise, for matter is indeed experiential in and of itself. DNA creates us from inert matter and then we have consciousness.

Mind and matter must be made of the same Stuff, being just different tokens of the same type, each “sentient” and perhaps both made of the eternal substance. Mind experiences the present mattering moment, and matter records the minded past from the mind. In other words, Present Mind and Past Matter combine the frames of the film of Space and Time that lives and plays in us as Consciousness, Mind taking Space and Matter doing Time, yet, both derive from the Eternal Substance, where whence lies Experiential Being itself, for Life’s great riddle of the Oneness of Mind Stuff and Brain Matter is that Mind really Matters, Matter ever Minds.

It could also be that consciousness is the only thing that’s real, but that’s another story. I just don’t think that all the intricacies of the brain and body and other things are just visions and not really there.

It could also be that consciousness is merely a higher part of the brain perceiving the rest of the brain, even likely, but, again, another story, although I've dipped into it here.