November 23, 2001.
 
 

Excepting common men, there is nothing worth the extended attention of human consciousness save consciousness itself (be it labeled mind, thought or knowledge);
all other non physical subjects of mental attention are nothing but
meaningless pastimes --  nothing wrong with them, but nothing worthwhile to them.
The study of consciousness in fact, takes in all of the other subjects
in that it is the genesis of them all.
 

Ordinary men’s mental attention is drawn primarily to the actions of the  human body, (sports, dramas, dance, and endless talking about other people’s behavior:
all reflections of sex),
and there is nothing wrong with this,
but it reveals nothing more to such men than is visible to
the mechanical eye/I of their mind.
Such activities are-what-they-are and nothing more,
and no amount of analysis, criticism or discussion will change this.
(“Bruno, tell the fans: why are you such an aggressive tackler? –
is it because of your childhood?;
because you grew up in the suburbs?;
because your mother was a caffeine addict?;
your father was a Trotsky-Presbyterian?”;
the game requires tackling;
only people who enjoy tackling play the game;
people who are enthusiastic in their tackling,
who in fact are sufficiently aggressive to be the subject of an interview;
anything further applied to the matter is
ducks trying to discuss differential equations: a harmless sport --
but pretty well devoid of any real life significance.)
 
 

Although consciousness is the smartest thing in the universe,
it still is the last to know,
and in the matter just mentioned regarding itself  --  at telling cost.
 

From the natural view of human consciousness,
human consciousness (the mortal mind) is the smartest thing in existence;
there is not even a second place contender;
as far as our minds can impartially determine, there is simply nothing else known
that is in any wise comparable to human consciousness --  and yet  --
                                                   it is the last to know.
 

This may at first sound absurd  --   but it is clearly so,
even scientifically demonstrable and a neurological known,
but outside the lab, its real-time reality is instantly forgotten.
 

All stimuli to which you react  --   if it does reach consciousness –
does so last  --  at the end of the line;
most of your reactions and adjustments to life occur non consciously;
your body is constructed to best handle most of this work automatically,
and consciousness is brought into the loop only periodically –
of course it seems to be more than just that,
since all it is aware of is what it is aware of,
and what it is made aware of takes up all of the time & space in itself,
so what it is aware of seems to it to be omnipresent,
but to an eye dropper, a thousandth of an ounce is an ocean,
and fills totally, all of its available sea floor.
 

Your non conscious, unthinking, illiterate cells receive all incoming information, whereas your consciousness only gets selected portions
and even when it does --  which most of the time it does not --
it only gets it after everyone else has seen it and done all they can with it;
only then is consciousness made aware of the information.
 

Nothing is amiss here; it makes perfect, practical sense;
consciousness is like the chief-of-guards at a king’s castle;
secured in the upper reaches, war room where he oversees its constant protection,
most of which amounts to such rote activity as to be adequately performed by
the rank & file guards and not requiring his direct participation;
it is only when some threat arises with which the general troops are unfamiliar,
and thus unable to satisfactorily dispose of,
is the chief-of-guards (consciousness) informed and brought into the action;
under these conditions, the chief (consciousness) is singular,
and if the castle’s defense is to hold  --  indispensable.
 

As intelligent as muscles are in their own operations
(which there, is superior to that of consciousness)
they still could not save the king from plunging to his death
as he drove by a highway sign that announced: “Bridge Out Ahead!” –
only consciousness could read the warning and thus protect him.
 
 

Consciousness (which is in practice to say:
the sensation a man has in his brain of himself and what he non physically knows)
in its own realm is singularly smart -- "incomparably" is a totally inadequate adjective,
and does not begin to describe the situation;
human consciousness is simply singular –
nothing else in all of this reality can tell  what it knows;
the cells of muscles, bones & blood certainly know a lot,
but they cannot speak of it --  only neurons can do that,
but they can only do it when they are given something TO know,
BY the cells of muscles, bones & blood.
 
 

Even though this overruns the boundary of rationality to ordinary minds,
can you not recognize its reality in practice:
from consciousness’ view,
(which is the only view of anything in the entire universe which can be expressed),
conscious is   --   irrefutably the smartest thing known,
yet in one quite real sense it is not so,
since whatever it knows has already passed through the hands of
every other interested molecule in your body before --  and if --
it  is ever delivered to consciousness.
 
 

Its astonishing, real-life, indispensable singularity
is based on the concept of: supremacy through limited responsibility –
same as with other proteins, cells and organs,
but the difference is that the brain via consciousness
can see, study & analyze the actions of the former, but not itself ........and yet,
it seems to itself that it does! --
and since the other molecules through which all information is passed
before it reaches consciousness make no editorial comments thereon,
consciousness is given no data which conflicts with this belief.
 

As if the chief-of-guards up in the war room, when he has nothing else to do,
engages in what he thinks of as, personal self-reflection,
while overlooking the fact that he has no self save for the information which
the faceless, nameless, speechless guards below forward to him --
and they have no knowledge of a self --  not of their self --
and certainly not of the chief’s self.

Indeed, the chief (consciousness) consists of nothing other than his memory of information previously supplied to him by the grunts, wherever they saw fit.
 

Whatever thoughts appear in your consciousness, be they enlightening or stupefying,
originated as impulses outside the brain and consciousness,
and only after the energy was analyzed, edited & translated into useable form
by molecules outside the brain,
was it turned into thought and passed on to your consciousness.

You could be judged: The Smartest Man In The World,
but there would always be one smarter than you:
that which produces the sensation of you.
 
 

Keep urging, nudging yourself out to the very edge of consciousness itself,
and one day you will suddenly be close enough to see over the edge –
look behind your own mind's back  --
--   and what is there will blow your eyes wide open.
 
 

                                                          J