Things That Aren’t

This rather un-originally is entitled “Things that Aren’t”. We have stumbled around in the area of ‘consciousness’ for a long time now, and have found many things that are reputed to BE, but AREN’T. Most of them make up the Great Formless Ocean of ‘what everyone knows’; almost all of which is faulty, silly, or just plain WRONG. You want to know what MIGHT be true? Take something that ‘everyone knows’, and look for its OPPOSITE. And then look for all those things that ‘everyone’ dismissed out of hand. THEY are probably not far from the mark. So having decided to concentrate on all the things that DON’T exist, naturally we start with a list of the things that DO. In relation to CONSCIOUSNESS …. There is such a thing as ‘being conscious’; because I AM. Which does NOT entail that there is such a ‘thing’ AS ‘consciousness’, except as the RECOGNITION OF A FACT. But there must be a WAY such a thing ‘happens’; and that way will EITHER be open to capture in the language we have, if we are clever enough (or can enlist the help of the nearest weasel); OR it WON’T. Consciousness, whatever it is, arises not in the ‘world’ supposedly ‘revealed’ by our sensory apparatus (but ACTUALLY produced out of thin air by a VERY CRAFTY BRAIN … ), but in THE WORLD ITSELF. It is a ‘phenomenon’ of REAL reality, NOT of our SO-CALLED ‘reality’. So why SHOULDN’T it be ‘enigmatic’ and elusive? Consciousness may be ‘primary’, meaning that it JUST EXISTS, HAPPENS, AS A THING IN ITSELF. Or it may be ‘secondary’ to SOMETHING THE BRAIN DOES. But if it IS ‘primary’, all that means (but quite a BIG ‘all’ … ) is that it ‘just occurs’ WHEN THE SITUATION ALLOWS. Since the only ‘situation’ in which it is KNOWN (by me!) to ‘arise’ is WITHIN MY OWN BRAIN, the ‘science’ of it will have to be based on ‘the general brain’ as it appears IN OUR MODEL; since I have NO intention of slicing up my own apparatus and putting it on a slide … YET …. The business of discussing a model, and the business of figuring out the ‘real thing’, are not the same. I thought I’d just put that in for all those who believe otherwise. The model is created by the brain, and is therefore a consequence of the brain’s ACTUAL situation. And, and again THEREFORE, consciousness-the-phenomenon arises IN and FROM a ‘situation’ that we have not so far been able to pin down: a ‘world’ made of things we don’t understand, in a ‘dimensionality’ we cannot agree on, supposedly lacking ‘time as such’ and ‘space as such’.