What Is Consciousness? Experience vs Logic

In the previous posts we began with the 5-MeO-DMT experience and what it consistently shows: ordinary reality can dissolve within seconds, and when the resistance to that dissolution ends, what remains is the clear recognition that everyday life is more like a dream than a solid world existing independently of awareness. Everything—the body, the personal story, other people, the world itself—appears within one infinite awareness. That awareness is not empty; it is filled with love, peace, joy and happiness. It is one infinite mind appearing as billions of forms.

This raised the central question. If life is a dream, who is the dreamer? Am I the mind dreaming everything and everyone into existence, or am I merely a dreamed character in someone else’s mind? Both possibilities led to the same dead end. Each contradicts the direct experience of the other and cannot be proven. The question is unanswerable.

So we stopped looking for the dreamer and turned our attention to the dream itself. Every object we examined—a chair, a sound, a thought, the body—is finite: limited in space and limited in time. It appears and disappears. The “I am,” the aware subject that knows these objects, has no such limits. When every finite object is removed, pure infinite awareness remains. Looking closely, we never find an object standing apart from that awareness. There is only awareness appearing as the object. Just as in a nighttime dream, there are no independent solid things outside the dream itself. Life is therefore more like a dream than a real, separate reality. The dreamer cannot be pointed to because it is infinite. There is only one infinite awareness apparently appearing as forms.

We then asked whether any of this makes logical sense. We cannot prove that objects exist outside awareness, and we cannot prove that awareness exists without objects. Both must belong to one system. That system has to include both subject and object, must not fall into an endless chain of explanations, and must contain no contradictions. Following those requirements leads to a closed system with no outside. Subject and object cannot be two separate substances that later try to meet; they are two sides of one self-processing whole. Like a book that has no outside, the system writes and reads itself. Author, word and reader are one activity. Because nothing stands outside this system, the structure is the same as the dream already showed: while it lasts it feels like a solid independent world, yet nothing exists apart from the system itself.

We also saw that two ways of speaking about this both pass the same tests. One keeps the object only as a movement of the whole—like a whirlpool that appears real but is only water in motion. The other keeps subject and object as equally real sides of one closed system—like the words and the reading in the book that has no outside. Neither can be proven over the other, because there is no outside from which to check. The difference is largely one of language.

In both accounts something is present that is conscious: the subject, the knowing, the reading of the book, the “I am.” What exactly is consciousness?

That is the question we turn to now.

In order to investigate what consciousness is, we first need to split our investigation into two camps again: the non-dual camp and the logic camp. Why? Because, as we saw in the previous posts, they come to the same conclusion that there is nothing outside of awareness or the system, yet they generate different worldviews. In the camp of non-duality we cannot find a self with free will, for example, and in the logic camp we can. So it could be that consciousness is something different in the non-dual camp than in the logic camp.

The non-dual camp

Let’s start with the non-dual camp first. What is consciousness from that perspective?

To find out what consciousness really is we have to look at our current experience again.

When we look directly at our experience we call everyday life, we notice two things: we experience objects and a subject who is aware of the objects. For example: A chair in the room is the object, and the one who is aware of the chair is the subject. In other words, I am aware (the subject) of the chair (the object).

Let’s investigate the object first. When I look at the chair, I see that it has a clear shape. It sits in a specific place in the room — here and not somewhere else. It has clear edges: I can see exactly where the chair stops and the floor or wall begins. So it is clearly limited in space.

The same is true for time. The chair appeared at a specific moment in the past. Before that it did not exist. Right now it is here, but one day it will wear out, break, or be thrown away. It has a clear beginning, a time when it exists, and a clear end. So it is clearly limited in time, just as it is limited in space.

Does this same description — limited in space and limited in time — apply to every possible object?

Let’s check a sound. A sound appears at a certain moment, lasts for a while, and then stops. It is clearly limited in time. Does it have limits in space? At first it may seem not, because a sound can fill the whole room. But when we listen carefully, we can clearly tell this sound apart from that sound — a voice, traffic outside, one tone from another. Because we can experience one sound as different from another sound or from silence, it does have boundaries. So yes, even a sound has limits in space.

Next, a thought. A thought appears in the mind at a certain moment, stays for a while, and then disappears or is replaced by another thought. It is clearly limited in time. A thought is not the subject. It is an object. Does it have limits in space? A thought does not have a visible shape or a fixed place in the room. Yet we can clearly tell this thought apart from that thought — one about dinner tonight, another about a childhood memory. Because we can experience one thought as separate from another or from the silence between thoughts, it too has boundaries. So even thoughts have limits in space.

Finally, the body. The body appears through seeing, touching, and inner feelings. It has a clear shape and sits in a specific place in the room — here and not somewhere else. It has clear edges: the skin is where the body stops and the outside world begins. So it is clearly limited in space. In time, the body appeared at birth and one day it will grow old, die, and stop existing. So the body is also clearly limited in both space and time.

Everything we have looked at — chairs, sounds, thoughts, and the body — appears as a limited object with clear boundaries in space and time. They all come and go.

Now let’s turn our attention to the one who is aware — the subject. This is what we naturally call “I am.”

Again, every object we examined is finite: limited in space and time. But is the “I am” itself an object? Can it be seen? Can it be located in space? Does it have a beginning or an end in time?

Let’s investigate. Let’s remove every object (that which is limited in space and time) from our experience. Let all thoughts subside and not be replaced. Let all feelings, sensations, and perceptions fade away.

Is there something that remains?

Yes! Look for yourself in your own experience. What remains is pure experience itself — the “I am” before it is filled with this or that object.

So now we have removed all objects that are by definition finite (limited in space and time), and we have discovered that only the “I am” remains. What does this say about the “I am” itself?

If the “I am” is not limited by space and time, then where or what is it? It must be infinite and ever-present, right? Otherwise we would be able to find its borders, its beginning, or its end — but we cannot.

These are important discoveries. We see that every object is finite (limited in space and time), while the subject — the “I am” — is infinite (not located in space and time). We also notice that the subject is the one who is aware. In other words, the “I am” is infinite, ever-present awareness that is aware of finite objects constantly coming and going.

Both the chair and the person appear as objects in this awareness. The chair is limited. The body is limited. The sense of being a person comes and goes. None of them is the subject. For most people this is not obvious. The sense of being a person feels like the one who is aware. Only when this investigation is done does it become clear that the person was an object all along. What remains is not limited the way the person is. That is the moment the distinction becomes clear. The person appears. Awareness does not appear as one more object. It is what knows the appearance. A chair cannot make this investigation. A person can.

This naturally raises the question: if the “I am” is infinite awareness that is always present, and objects are limited in space and time (in other words, they come and go and are therefore not always present), what are objects really made of? Are objects “really” objects that exist outside of awareness, or are they made of the stuff that is always present, namely infinite awareness?

Let’s investigate.

When I look at an object, is there anything other than the awareness of it? No. The only thing I notice is that I am aware of it. I never find an object standing apart from that awareness. I can only say with absolute certainty that awareness is present as this appearance.

To make this clearer, let’s take the chair as an example. I look at the chair. What do I actually find? I find the awareness of the chair — the seeing of its shape, its colour, its position in the room. That is all. I do not find a chair existing separately, outside this awareness. There is only awareness appearing as a chair. No matter how closely I look, I never find anything else. There is no chair “out there” that I then become aware of. There is only this awareness knowing the appearance that I call “chair.” So if we look honestly at our experience, the answer to the question is this: what we call an object is made of awareness. That is all that is actually found. An object existing outside of awareness is not something we experience; it is an extra idea added afterwards.

Could we somehow prove that there are objects outside of our awareness?

Let’s investigate.

If there were objects outside of awareness, wouldn’t we need awareness itself to verify their existence? In other words, wouldn’t any proof or observation we could ever make still have to appear within awareness? And can we ever step outside of awareness to check whether something exists independently of it? No, we can’t. We need awareness to verify whether there are objects outside of awareness.

Would it theoretically be possible that there are objects outside our awareness even if we cannot find them directly in our experience?

Yes, it is theoretically possible. Why? Just because we cannot verify it does not mean it is not the case. But one thing is certain: it remains an unnecessary assumption that there is something outside of our perception. Why assume something that we can never prove?

These are important discoveries. When we look directly at present experience, we see that we only ever experience awareness and never objects known to exist outside awareness.

Now we can ask: if I look at this infinite ever-present awareness, what are its qualities?

We have to go back to our own experience again. Strip away every object — thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions — and see what remains.

Let’s investigate.

What do you find? I experience nothing but love, peace, joy and happiness.

So from the non-dual camp consciousness is infinite, ever-present awareness that is filled with love, peace, joy and happiness. What a discovery.

Another great discovery we can conclude from this investigation might be interesting for neuroscientists. If from the point of view of experience the object is made of consciousness itself, it means the brain (object) is NOT the cause of consciousness (the subject)! It is more true to say that consciousness is the cause of the apparent brain.

The logic camp

Now let’s see what consciousness is from the logic camp.

In the logic camp subject and object must belong to one closed system with no outside. The system writes and reads itself. There is no writer outside the book and no reader standing next to it.

Consciousness is the capacity of the system to recognize and process itself. It is not something the system has. It is the activity of the system when it receives input, recognizes that input according to its own rules, and returns that recognition as a state. Without recognition there is no object known. Without an object there is nothing to recognize. They arise together.

The chair and the person both belong to this system. Neither stands outside it. Yet the recognition does not go equally far in both. The chair has a simple structure. The system can recognize it as a chair, but the chair does not recognize itself. The recognition stops at the object.

The person has a more complex structure — the body and especially the brain. That structure allows the recognition to go further. The system can not only recognize the object, but also recognize the recognition itself. Thoughts can be distinguished. Memories can be related to the present. The sense of being a person can be recognized as one appearance among others. This is why a person can see the difference between knower and known. The chair cannot.

The difference is not that the person has consciousness and the chair does not. Both participate in the same self-processing activity. The difference is how far the recognition goes. In the person the system can recognize its own recognizing. In the chair it cannot.

In the non-dual camp consciousness is infinite awareness prior to objects. In the logic camp consciousness is the self-recognition of the system. Both camps agree there is nothing outside. They differ on whether the object is only an appearance within awareness, or a real side that arises together with the recognition of it. In both camps only a person can make the investigation and see the difference. The chair cannot. The person can, because the structure that carries the person allows it.

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