Consciousness is defined as the ability to think and analyze pretty much anything. To be able to decide decisions. To be able to assume and predict. To be aware.
But that is the main problem as to why most people are baffled by the mere idea of consciousness. What do it mean to be aware? And then of course, comes in the philosophical, existential and possibly never ending question of whether anything is real and whether we are real.
I read somewhere about the ideology of reality being only what you think, disregarding all the other functions of the sensory organs as a mere hallucination from our mind. But since they are from our mind, does that mean they’re real? Or is reality only the original thought that comes into mind not the additional blank spaces that our brain has cooked up to fill in the story- something similar to the phenomenon of why when things move too fast, human sight is too slow to recognize the fps and hence our mind fills in for us so we end up seeing things at a different speed than we should, perhaps even slower.
Then of course, there is the famous theory of living in a simulation under the control of a seemingly superior being. Further expanding this would allow us to arrive at the presumption that free decision making takes up all the squares on a roulette wheel, yet the decision to spin the wheel lies in the hand of “god”. So is there only one simulation, is that too endless, infinite across millions of parallel universes where each decision is different- not unlike the ones shown in that movie “everything everywhere all at once” — and at every step of the way, things take a reroute changing fate for all of forever?
And is fate real? For all we know, the future is non existent. That leaves us only the privilege of being a observer in the past whenever in question of the future. In other terms, the future is now, the present is long gone and the past even further, but only if you are on the right timeline. At every instant, every millisecond, you will never have been older than you are now, so does that mean you have time travelled into the future or maybe you are just living in it?
Is the universe real? The billions of stars and planets that litter the sky provoke the natural reminiscence of beauty, perfection but they are nothing but a reflection of the past. Billions of years ago, as we stare into the masses of bright reflections. For all we know, the universe could have reached its end, succumbing to its virtual fate, and one by one the lights will diminish off of our polluted skies and soon we will too.
So is this time travel then? A simple act of looking up at the stars? You are also simultaneously looking into the past of billions of years of evolution and if someone is out there looking at you, what would they see?
Far away enough, and far into the past enough, you would not exist at all. What does this say about your position in space? Is everything coexistent at the same time? Is time a continuum or is it even real? At this exact moment, what is the universe full of? Where are we? How did we get here? Is there even a ‘here’?
And the final answer to all these questions points to one singular act- death. To live, to feel, to exist- all torn apart in a split second and for it all to stop. For consciousness to end, for reality to end. To feel that slight glimpse of true nature, of the truth, of purpose and of life. Does everything stop or does it all begin again? Does god exist or are we the gods? Are we stuck here, forever floating in a tiny bubble of awareness or are free to the end of our thoughts, feelings, desires?
A final exchange between man and other,
for truth we have but little to offer.
Of time, of days, of closing beginnings,
and a start to the end of inevitable thinking.
