Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

7. Consciousness

‘Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.’

Alan Watts

Each morning, as the sun rises, so too the lights come on in our minds. An awareness that has been somewhere else for a few hours manages somehow to switch back on to the world and make a coherent picture of the tangle of sense perceptions reaching it. I don’t want to disparage scientific attempts to explain how all this happens, but I cannot help but feel it is a fundamentally mysterious process. Things only get more puzzling as the day gets underway! Sooner or later there is an encounter with another person — or another creature of some kind. They share the same world as us, apparently, but hold their own unique perspective. In a way, therefore, to know them from within their own thoughts (assuming they have thoughts like us) is impossible. And yet somehow there is communication between these two seemingly separate and autonomous beings! It seems appropriate to stand back for a moment and wonder at how infinitely unlikely all this is. So there is mystery at every turn. It is not just ‘out there’ — it is within our own minds

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