It is the single most important question of Philosophy, that philosophers have been wondering about for thousands of years. It is pretty much the most important question that I can think of, because if solved, it would solve all other questions. It is the fundamental question, and everything else is derived from this. So humans have been trying to solve this question, but from what I have seen, nobody has came close to it.

I believe I found the answer to the question, and thus solved the biggest problem, simply by realizing that the question is misleading, and applying what I have already known, and talked about in my past articles.

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Intro

First of all, the question is misleading, since many philosophers, but mostly scientists, who actively research consciousness, like neuro-scientists, are actually confusing it's definition. So what is consciousness? First we need to define the term.

Wikipedia

Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.

merriam-webster

the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact
the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought
the totality of conscious states of an individual
the normal state of conscious life
the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes

dictionary.com

the state of being conscious; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

Now here is the problem. They are all referring to the same thing, and I assume the neuro-scientists and most philosophers (except the really thorough ones like me) refer to the same thing.

So these definitions refer to the Conscious Mind. The "You" that is doing the conscious things, otherwise called the "Ego", it is technically the Mind as it is.

The Body & Mind

So if this is what they refer as consciousness, then they are false, or bare minimum incomplete. If this is what consciousness means, then there is a problem, because there is something beyond this. But I would not call this consciousness, because we already have a definition for this phenomena: the Mind, Ego, Conscious Mind, "ghost inside the machine", etc...

So the way a human works is that it has a body, and a brain. The body is a biological machine. The body gathers inputs from various senses, and the brain is like the CPU. While the Mind is just the point-of-view from the CPU. The question is, who is watching it? Who is the interpreter?

In other words, yes the Mind is derived from the brain. And if the brain dies, the Mind goes away. That is well known in neuro-science. Nobody doubts that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir8XITVmeY4

The question is, is there something beyond the Mind? Because as any CPU, it needs interpretation. Who is the interpreter? Who is watching the watcher?

Beyond the Mind

The Conscious Mind, or the Ego, is what you think consciousness means, but it's not. When you are awake, you are constantly thinking. Part of it is conscious, a large part of it is unconscious, like instincts, or the Autonomic nervous system, now that is what it means to be an average human living day-to-day.

But when you dream, the voluntary control goes away, but you are still experiencing it from 1st point of view, like if watching a movie in the cinema. So the Ego is still there, "watching" it what you dream, and sometimes interfering with it, like how lucid dreams can occur, where you can take control of the dream.

So the Mind is like a giant container, where thoughts pop up randomly (or perhaps not random, but influenced by the body), and a dream can roll out. And in the awake stage you have control over it, while in the dreaming stage you don't.

Now in meditation, there are no thoughts. So the container is empty. In proper meditation, the Mind is emptied, and there is no conscious thought going on. Your Subconscious Mind might still do something, but that is irrelevant because we are interested in consciousness, not our body.

But that doesn't stop the experience. If the Mind is empty, and there are no thoughts. You are still there, in fact this is what really shows you that there is something beyond the Mind. Because if the Mind is empty, and there are no thoughts, this proves that it's not the Mind that is the "watcher" but something beyond it.

If the Ego is put aside, that shows that it's only an illusion, that emerges out of necessity to interact with the world, but it's not the one in control.

So there are 2 layers of consciousness:

• The superficial awareness: the Ego, Mind, or whatever you call it.
• The real awareness: the absolute observer

God

The observer beyond the Mind, is just there as it is. There is no watcher for the watcher. There is just a watcher, that is watching what there is: existence. Yes this is God.

• If Solipsism is true, then there is only 1 God, the one that is watching now and proves Subjective idealism.
• If all point of views are watched, then Pantheism is true.

However, these 2 theories are actually the same thing, it's just from different views. It is exactly the same thing, because it shows 1 God to be pulling the strings behind everything, in one way or the other.

So in any case Atheism is false. Of course this doesn't mean that the Biblical God is true. It's an immaterial God encompassing everything. Consider Pantheism if it's hard to imagine, but it's the same thing as Subjective idealism or Solipsism, it's just the question from what point of view we look at it.

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Sources:
https://pixabay.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consciousness
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/consciousness

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Upvote, ReSteem &