CONSCIOUSNESS AND REALITY
Contents:
Consciousness is consciousness of something, i.e. something that exists. A content-less state of consciousness is precisely its negation: unconsciousness. Consciousness has a starting point, which is the birth of awareness. To be aware presupposes that there is something to be aware of before one is aware. If consciousness is only aware of itself, and thus, if its contents are created entirely by itself, then it must exist before it can create them, i.e. it must be conscious before it creates content to be conscious of, i.e. it must be conscious before it is conscious — a contradiction. Consciousness presupposes a reality beyond itself that it perceives, which means existence (as a whole) exists independently of consciousness.
The fact of existence is grasped by my sensation of something. I am aware that there is something as opposed to nothing, i.e. existence exists, and consciousness is its affirmation. As my awareness expands, I grasp something, as opposed to something else. It is something that exists and only exists; its existence cannot be its negation. If something exists, it is what it is, and my perception of it is its affirmation; I perceive, and can only perceive something in particular as opposed to nothing in particular, i.e. nothing at all.
Hence, we see that by the very fact of being conscious, we affirm the axioms of existence. This affirmation is not as explicit metaphysical statements but as implicit acceptance (implicit in every act of consciousness). This acceptance is the root of everything you accept or reject, as it is the root of everything you can accept or reject. To deny it is impossible; you are forced to accept it even as you try, because of the fact that you exist and are conscious.
Hence, we see that to be conscious is to perceive that which exists, and to perceive something in particular. How, then, do we learn more than these facts? What is knowledge, how is it formed, and how can it be validated? This is the domain of epistemology, i.e. the study of the nature of knowledge and knowledge-formation.
The fact of consciousness offers the knowledge, implicitly rather than explicitly, that (1) existence exists and (2) that which exists is what it is. Consciousness begins at perception, and this presupposes an irreducible means of input that is its basic link to reality: sense-perception. Even the first metaphysical axiom, i.e. “existence exists”, is known from the fact that we sense something in the first place. In other words, we can and do know the reality that lies beyond our consciousness.
Knowledge of reality is possible…
Consider the view, “knowledge of reality is impossible”. This is a self-contradictory view since it asserts knowledge while denying the validity of knowledge, including the validity of what it asserts. Such a view cannot be true as it falsifies itself. Nonetheless, in the later sections of Epistemology, I shall delve deeper into how and why knowledge of reality is in fact possible.