Self-Thinkingness
Consciousness notices differences in state or stasis, in what is otherwise static: consciousness is the phenomenon of observance of change, of ratio between two bodies. Consciousness is conscious of difference. Difference requires differentiation, dichotomy. The ratio is detected by rationality. Rationality is a viewpoint, a perspective, it requires subjectivity, as what it rations are to it, objects which object to it as functional or useful, or meaningful in some way to it, the subjective rationalizing, ratio seeing, judge, who’s disposition is dispossessed (not caught up in, or ‘possessed’ by) or ‘other than’ that which it observes, whether those be materials or abstract estimations of value by volume or relative meaning to it. Consciousness is bound up in science, or rather, science is bound up in con-science: Consciousness is the observer of the world around it ‘with science’ (‘con’ means ‘with’ or ‘against’ in its latin origin––both meaning subjectivity in con-trast to objects, the things that object to its ––the subject’s–– awareness). Clearly man is conscious, aware of change, difference, rational and rationing. He sees difference, change in the very opening of his eyes: he sees only through contrast. He hears and even thinks in contrast. His orientation is his subjectivity to contrast. Man is rational and his rationality is bound up in his subjectivity. His subjectivity is bound up in his persistent notion, notation, his persistent noticing of ‘other’ in contrast to himself, his notion of self. The world is dichotomous to man because he is a noticer of differences. He is subject. He is subjectivity. He is homo sapien: self thinking. That he thinks of himself as a self is his viewpoint on the world as other, by default. He is, a priori, his perception, his subjectivity, his consciousness. He is named for it.
Time is change
If what time is is the change itself, measurement, then ‘Measurement by who or what?” is implicitly the question begged. By a subject: who is subject to objects that object to his, its if you like, subjectivity. If time is the change itself, and not just change’s measuring stick, then just as we seek to understand the constitution of matter and its primordial element, we must seek to understand time (postulated here for argumentation sake as change) and its original…surely we cannot say ‘state’; for if by its nature –if we can say that time has a nature of its own and outside of its relation to its observance or observer (for we do call time functional relative, and it is relative to its subjective observer…per Einstein anyway)– time is necessarily the change between states, giving warp to their woof; then change itself cannot be constituted of statefulness, as is matter––else all would be static and all is not static; thus we must seek to understand the constitution of change itself, and what I will here call its primordial subjective orientation toward matter, its juxtaposition, or psychic superposition as I see it: and we must seek to do so without recourse to time as measuring stick, for here we aim to adhere strictly to physicists’ definition of time as change itself. This dualism can be thought of as meta-material (object) and meta-observance (subject) for our purposes here.
The immeasurable not-thing
Constituent in change and thereby time, is something that cannot be a ‘thing,’ not if it must reside between things, between matter, or superordinate to it, as it must be effectively not the thing––it must have some ability to treat or construe the thing to be measured as separate from itself it it is to be able to measure the states of matter, its object––its objective. The measuring is necessarily outside of that which is measured, just as a ruler cannot measure itself. Time, as measure of states of matter is therefore outside of matter, not-material, and therefore not subject to measurement as matter. Time then, change itself, cannot be measured, lest we posit a non-static, non-changing, non-thing outside of both time and matter––some ineffability of which I cannot conceive (which, to give away my point prematurely, is similar to Aquinas’ description of god as that which can only be described by what it is not––that is, god is ineffable). Said differently, if time is and measures changes in matter, then what kind of non-static, non-stateful, non-thing (for surely matter cannot measure the thing that measures it, and given that likewise time cannot measure itself), can and does measure both time and matter?
Man is the measure of all things –Plato
The human being is the experiencer, the observing non-thing. You may say “he is a being then, matter!” but I do not mean to posit his material being as the non-thing I aim to describe. I mean his being as Dasein, his consciousness as a self-conscious, experiencing, psychic and virtual entity—the kind of entity that you would not deny yourself as being and experiencing, the kind of being that to we human beings is self-evident to such a compelling degree that we grant these entities—ourselves and others that we recognize as such, rights that we construe as belonging to us, as endowed, and as inalienable from our experiences, rights that are functionally real as evidenced to us by their efficacy, or, when alienated from us reconcile to us what is universally considered an imposition upon this experience of ours, our being. This to say consciousness, while virtual, is real enough for we experiencers of it to construct a real world and to codify opinions about its self sovereign nature as materially viable and valuable, constitutive of our ‘selves’ and others: constitutive of society—functionality as material truth ratified in our very constitution—The Constitution. This being, not change nor time himself who observes and measures both time and matter, and who’s being, who’s experience is neither but is comprised of both is subject to time and matter. Both object to his awareness, his subjectivity as objects, one material, the other immaterial or virtual and, if only a concept of his, a concept shared by all like him; and as he is comprised of matter, his sense of it (time) necessarily evidences itself to him as a vector on matter itself, between it and before it, it’s virtual hyper-objectivity as having existed long before his material and indeed that of his kind. His awareness does not arise without a sense of self––his self-awareness begotten of his subjectivity to matter and change, time, as his existence, his self-concept, the way he conceives of himself is constituent of his matter and its temporality as they appear to be his constraining factors, the limitations of and to his being’s ability to experience as a being-observer, or observer-being, if you like, his telos, his function, consciousness’ function: observation.
Change is surely present in emergence: from (a marker of place or state, and/or in time) nothing, “no thing,” to (a destination in place or state, and/or in time, as well) something, “some thing.” This implies transition or transposition, movement, and movement of a thing, matter. As long as —or better put, before— matter’s first part, or the first particle of matter, matter’s first anti-state or meta-state has existed (and we must soon ask ‘to what observance of it’ or ‘to whom’), and thus, time has necessarily existed, and therefore also time’s immaterial, non-static observer, being itself, consciousness must have existed, been existing even before this inaugural change––its (‘being’s’) observation being constitutive of this first particle’s existence ––its coming into existence, its exogenous move from nothing (no-thing) into something (some thing): Being’s role as prime observer of matter’s first change, its emergence, and thereby being constitutive of matter’s first state––matter of course not existing without state, and if stateful, then necessarily emergent, and in its emergence, changing, and, if changing, dependent upon something —or rather some not-thing: either change itself which is absurd, and thus more reasonably, observation, as of course change itself requires observance to be, or to have taken place, for taking place is an idiom and must needs to happen, or have happened in time. Observance, consciousness is the only “non-thing-in-itself.” ‘Being’ (as a disembodied but embody-able verb) in it’s own meta-physical, immaterial, virtual-state —psychic superposition if you will— is the only non-thing that is stateless and is thereby a virtual thing, is reliably instantiabtable and self-instantiating (after birth), is self-conscious in nature, and thereby observes itself, stateful and stateless in time, unknowing of its own beginning, perceives something like “forever,” time, and thereby participates in limited fashion transjectivally in omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Hereby, matter is requisite of an observer if matter is to exist, to emerge at all, and time —defined as change— too needs its predecessor, it’s observer, the omnipotent potentiate: being, the being that man experiences in his limitation and knows of as functionally real, builds his laws by, has and makes his way in, and of which who’s vector he knows of himself to be a limited but surely constituent part: for as his consciousness spontaneously emerged in time and of it, he knows time to be the conscious immateriality in who’s grand meta-observation his conscious materiality emerges into its being, it’s Dasein, as does clearly all matter and all consciousness.
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Thus matter must have been under observation, or better put, meta-material must have been under observation by meta-observance in its potential, even prior to its first state, for, if change exists, it must change from one state, a reference frame, else the would-be second state would never be (able to be) observed. If matter in its first state were observed, then the observing consciousness, observant of the first and second states and thereby called, constituted of, observant of, and being, time, must have existed prior to the meta-material. The first matter’s coming into existence as the birth of first-state matter itself would be the first change: from no matter to matter. Thus time, its self constituted self-existence, its own meta-state was birthed in the meta-material’s coming into existence.
Being is self-emergent
Time is change, Time is born of change. Time cannot exist without stateful matter––it cannot measure what is not there. Matter cannot exist without coming into being. Coming into being is change. Change is time. Matter, and change are co-constituent. Observance is required for all three. Observance is inherently self-observance as subjective experience to time and matter––what ‘matters’ to subjectivity’s experience of time and matter. Observance then, is a meta-existence alongside matter. Meta-observance, consciousness and thereby consciousness of difference—difference at bottom of self and other, self now from self…now, in observation of time ages in its observation of time. Observation marks change based on the ruler of itself––being being neither time and change, nor matter, and being is non-embodied as meta-observer: it is not the body, not time, not change, but observance itself––its self. Being is the ruler of time and matter. In its marking of change, it exists, it has its being. Being, the only way we can conceive of it, its essence is found in our consciousness. We observe. We mark time and measure matter. Together these are to our existence, to our observance, what matters: change. We are concerned with, conscious of change. Matter interests us, but only insofar as it has potential for use––change in state. Matter only matters in relation to us and in relation to change: in relation to our consciousness.
We have limited consciousness. We are not conscious of all matter at all time, or even much matter at all, any of the time. What matters is necessarily limited to and by our consciousness, else we would be all consciousness.
We conceive of our gods as all-conscious. We fashion Marduk’s head surrounded by eyes. We place the eye atop the pyramid as highest thing: observance, attention. Christ called kataboles, payments (of attention) “the foundation of the world,” as did Peter. Kataboles also meaning ‘cast down’ as was Lucifer, light seeker, knowledge haver, knower himself, man––the being who pays attention. In modern christian churches they sing “in him we live and move and have our being.” The monotheistic Judaic g_d is conceived of as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. These are all metaphors pointing at time and its observance. Omni: ‘all’ ; ‘scient’ ––science, bifurcating, cutting, dissecting, polar, dichotomous, pulling apart to look at, to observe.; ‘potent’ ––potential, having the ability to potentiate, enact, act, act upon matter, act in time; ‘present’ ––pre, before, presence, now, before now, being, observing before all times.
Man’s observance is a limited, constrained version of all knowing, the knowing of all time and thereby all matter in all its states, before and during them, observant of statefulness itself. Our consciousness is a microcosm of the macrocosmic consciousness that is time, is change, is all-observing of matter and, to us, what matters. What matter is is what it can be, what is its potential in relation to being. Knowing time is to be cursed with the knowledge of time’s end in our subjective point of view––to be matter subject to time, to death. Hence man’s coming to consciousness is a fall––the fall of Lucifer into the knowledge of all-consciousness, bound, embodied into finiteness from the infinite. This is the curse of man, to make payments of his attention: kataboles. Man’s unique curse is to notice his life, and all his complexes arise from this fact described in every ancient story, every first story. If God is man’s conception of all consciousness and man the self conceived thief of god’s knowledge, then his knowledge of good and evil (the meaning he attributes to life-giving and life-taking changes in states of matter as they appear to his observance, his valence-making thought, his meaning-making, his divination), and if his only solutions, his only salve, his salvation is the further pursuit of material solutions to his material problem, then he is indeed cursed to time and its end. Thus, man needs some other salve. That he conceives of time is his likeness to his concept of all time, his god. Once a man came with a solution to this problem, a salve, a salvation, announcing the Greek antonym, Katapausis: Rest, the cessation of payments of attention, the cessation of labor that makes for those payments of attention that for man feed his belly and calm his mind worried with time and death. Rest is death itself, resignation to it, acceptance of it, and while on earth, more specifically, death of the psychic self, death to one’s fellows. For as he feeds them, pays them his attention, his manna, he is returned rest. If done well he is crucified, paid back all his outgone manna for time immemorial, as was this man, and his receipt of payments continue as proof of the efficacy of his foolishly and bravely announced method: Die to your fellows and rejoin the deathless unknowing of time, the great consciousness who is timeless: God. And that is the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and no one knows it. We run around trying not to die, worried for our salvation, ignorant of the simple fact that came right from Christ’s mouth: try and save your life and you’ll lose it. But give it up and you’ll have it––forever.