« Attempt # 5 »

One of the hardest things to understand, let alone to convey, is that consciousness is not anatomically (structurally) inside of living matter but is phenomenologically (inherently, qualitatively) inside.

Attempt 1: Consciousness is the living aspect of overtly dead matter. Consciousness is not "a function of structure," but an inherent characteristic of matter. Consciousness, thus, is not an ontological category separate from matter but an ontological characteristic of matter. Not a separate substance or substrate (that is somehow structurally mixed in with matter) but an internal (subjective) dimension of otherwise dead objects of matter. To think that consciousness is an emergent function of cleverly organized matter is a category mistake (a confusion of category "function" for category "substance"). Consciousness is not a substance but a capacity of substance to sense, feel, and think. Consciousness, thus, is phenomenologically fundamental to matter. Not a different type of matter, but matter's "heart," matter's "mind," matter's awareness of other matter, i.e. subjectivity, i.e. interiority.

Attempt 2: Matter is exteriority (form). Awareness is interiority (essence). Awareness (consciousness, interiority) is not inside of matter - it's throughout matter.

Attempt 3: Look inside, Living Matter. You are nothing but matter. And yet here you are - sensing, thinking, feeling. This feeling of being you, this feeling of feeling isn't inside you. It's throughout you. It is you. This subjectivity of presence, this phenomenological sense of existence and of awareness is not a thing-inside but the thing-itself.

Attempt 4: Looking for consciousness inside matter is like looking for fire inside fire. Fire is fire.  Consciousness is matter.  Collapse the duality of (body and mind, of consciousness and matter) to understand that consciousness is not a thing-inside-the-thing but the thing-itself in all its paradoxical thing-less-ness.

Attempt 5: