The Dasein of Consciousness

 

Seems to me that the only thing of which I can be absolutely certain is consciousness and what that is I haven't the slightest idea. I perceive consciousness to be something that exists, something of the reality of whatever exists, an awareness of existence itself, a reflection of whatever might exist, a phenomena of existence for which its very nature is beyond the ability of humans to comprehend. 

Lacking an understanding of the phenomena, I take a great leap faith, a belief that is not based on proof, and conclude that my consciousness is not the entirety of my existence but is a reflection of existence beyond my consciousness. By extrapolation, I hold that consciousness is mind's awareness of the brain's awareness of existence. But that gives rise to what is the mind? What is the brain? Of what is the brain aware? I have only made the "existence hole" bigger and deeper.

Consciousness has some interesting properties. First of all, it is not a continuously occurring  phenomena that is always present. It comes and goes. And sometimes it only partially comes and goes. Consciousness reflects an awareness in the mind only about 10% of what the brain itself is aware. The brain picks and chooses what it will enable to present as consciousness. Additionally,human consciousness is wrought with factual errors about our existence. All too often it results in false perceptions of existence. Further, consciousness cannot reflect any existence which we have not or cannot experience with the production of sensory information. Indeed, experience is the foundation upon which consciousness arises.

Some would posit that we can be conscious of existence beyond experience. Many, for example, claim consciousness of the existence of transcendental gods. Many claim to have had experiences with transcendental gods but none have given any proof of it. I do not claim to have had such an experience. But lack of experience and lack of evidence is not proof of lack of existence. The possibility of existence beyond our current or future experience cannot completely discounted.

And so it is that consciousness is our only window to our own existence and existence of the world around us whatever that might be. Consciousness is our awareness by way of our mind arising from awareness of our brain of sensory data reflecting the existence us and the world around us. That is, consciousness arises from information collected and processed by the brain. We cannot be directly conscious of the existence of anything that might exist but does not result in a sensory data being transmitted to our brain when we experience it. As such, consciousness is but information derived from existence but is not of existence itself.  It has the same properties as does, say, mathematics or logic or the color red.

The human brain is a powerful machine capable of indirectly extracting information from information obtained by indirect observation. We can, for example, have indirect consciousness of light not visible to the human eye by indirect observation with light sensors that are capable of sensing light that our eyes cannot sense directly. But, once again, our indirect consciousness of this light is the result of the experience of observing the signal of the instrument sensing the light invisible to our eyes.  But, as is the case with transcendental gods, we as humans have no direct proof of its very existence.

And so it is that we take ourselves to exist by way of consciousness composed of sensory information limited by our ability to sense existence with sensors ill suited for the purpose. We are allowed only a fleeting glimpse existence through the dasein of consciousnesses ... whatever that might be.

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