It is not easy to grasp the simple role of consciousness, because consciousness is wrapped up with every detail of our experience ; we therefore see distinctions between many different things, rather than unity in one.
Philosophers have spent a good deal of time explaining exactly how the awareness of a stubbed toe is different from the memory of a stubbed toe in days gone by, or a dream (or even the dream of a memory or the memory of a dream), and how all are different from the reality of the stubbed toe itself ; not to mention the simple “feelings” which are our emotional response to things ; and again, our awareness (and feelings about) things that are not “things” at all : awareness of the ideation of meanings in words like Love and Justice, Hate and Evil.
In the modern clinical laboratory, this philosophical complexity is compounded with the complexity of describing our observations of brain activity patterns associated with different conscious experiences, and hence, the areas of the brain which might be responsible for their production.
How then, are we to study what is common to all consciousness (and hence what consciousness always is) ?
One path towards this goal would be to study the unconscious state, to compare, to subtract, to identify what is present in the one and absent from the other.
However, there is a slight problem here :
There is no experience of the unconscious state.
When we are truly unconscious we do not simply feel like somebody who can feel nothing ; there is no experience at all ; there is no “us” ; there is no “it” ; without present ; without memory ; without anticipation ; Nothing. As far as we are concerned, there is a complete void of existence, as though nothing — and nobody — ever had, or would exist.
That is the whole point :
All “experience” is conscious.
So, might we settle all the world’s problems just by killing ourselves, the way a child thinks he can make the boogey-man disappear, by closing his eyes ? Clearly not. For we are not alone ; even if, as some people think, our conscious experience ends with death, the world marches on ; all of the other people are still alive and conscious, existence continues without us.
And yet there would still seem to be many things that might truly be lost with death. Consider a very special conversation — of immense importance — between two soulmates : if it is not recorded ; if it has never been described ; if both parties are departed ; does it (did it) ever exist ?
“Perhaps”, comes the thoughtful answer. Our thoughts and actions might be greatly altered in such a conversation ; its effects might be felt in all of our interactions with others. Great deeds, even children, might be the result. But, if, on the other hand, the conversation took place on a deserted island ; if both participants died beyond contact ; their bones never discovered by others ; all of their common experience lost : why should we even care ?
The world is alive now. It is vast. There are billions of self-aware creatures experiencing and creating that life. What need does such a living world have of a specific memory– or any memory at all for that matter. Whatever is lost will immediately be replaced with something new. Perhaps it is better, indeed, to forget the past ; revel in the present ; enjoy the good ; erase the bad. Easy to forget — easy to forgive.
But what if there were only one conscious mind remaining in the world ? If that mind is silenced, does the whole world then disappear into the pure annihilation of unconsciousness ? Does that world even continue to exist ? And if so, how does that existence differ from no existence at all ?
To be continued …