A few of us met last night to talk about consciousness. We ambled about. Taking a turn to speak, the speaker struggled to clarify what it was that he/she intended to say. That’s the upshot when there’s no agreed upon definition of consciousness. There’s a tinge of magic to the term. Consciousness has traditionally been deemed special, the property of homo sapiens, and some might believe equivalent to the image of god. Consciousness sometimes is spoken of by scientists as an “emergent property.” That is, whatever it is, simply occurs, “bang” when an organism reaches a threshold of complexity. Consciousness pops up! Two opposing views. God-given theory vs the “little bang” theory.

I struggled as well last night, to say what I had in mind. Not a member of either of the above mentioned styles of thought/stories of consciousness, I favor the notion that consciousness is “felt” all around us. It’s everywhere. Or as was expressed by another of our group: “turtles all the way down.” The paramecium in a drop of water is “conscious” according to the exigencies of the type of creature which it happens to be, within a given environment.

Language is a human venturing to describe, embarking upon a linguistic voyage of discovery in company with others, pointing to islands and continents and creatures and strangers (humans with unfamiliar rituals). Words are as a finger pointing to this, to that and the other.

Words explain nothing.

The “what” of which we speak is concealed, mysterious,
and there’s always a tint of “magic.”

“Birth before it arrives, cannot be prevented;
death, once it has occurred,
cannot be taken back.
Death and life are not far apart
but the laws which determine then
cannot be known.

The views that maintain
that the universe was created by something
or that there was nothing which created it
are conjectures derived from doubt.
When we search for the origin of the universe,
It takes us back to infinity;
when we search for the end of the universe
It continues without cessation.
Infinite, unceasing—there are no word for this.

To attempt to describe it is to put it in the same
category of speech which gave rise to the views
that the universe was created by something or
that there was nothing
which created it.

The views begin and end with things.

We cannot ascribe being or non-being
to the dao.

Zhuangzi trans. by Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, Book 25 Zeyang

Curious about paramecium consciousness? CLICK HERE