BEING CONSCIOUS: Part 1 — Ah, It's Nothing

[2 of 5—to begin click here:  BEING CONSCIOUS: A Brief Introduction]

How on Earth can we think about consciousness?

How do we know what we know?

Where does awareness come from anyway?

And who decides what’s real?

Such questions have been asked since time immemorial and all we’ve really got to show for it is a bunch of stories about singularities and big bangs, and then more stories about God or the Gods, some rather impenetrable religious ideas we can’t throw a stick at, a few strange psychological ideas, and a great deal of argument about its physicality.  In the end we’re stuck with pretty much a big fat nothing.  So what’s up with that?

Well, what if consciousness comes from nothing—and nothing decides?  How’s that for a strange idea?

NOTHING?

Yep, that certainly is a strange idea.  How can awareness possibly come from nothing?  That’s just plain nuts.  Well now, maybe it is—and maybe it isn’t.  Something from nothing, eh?

Perhaps we should begin with another story. 

BEING CONSCIOUS: A Brief Introduction

In this series we'll examine the nature of consciousness informally by telling a story of its emergence.  We'll look at how it might have manifested through sound to transform into the language we use today and what that could mean for us now.

To do this we'll introduce an unorthodox way to look at the meanings of words we use—words we often take for granted.  The idea is to peek behind the veil to see if we can find some form of order or obscured meaning in the sounds we use to speak about ourselves and our world.  Think of it as a game.