The word __onsciousness,_ it seems to me, can only refer to what one might define provisionally as __he knowing that cannot know itself without intermediary and that cannot function in experience (of which it is an indispensable component) except negatively.__o the question __hat is consciousness,_ then, a low level provisional answer might be __t is the pure subjective_ or __t is the bare knowing of what it is not that constitutes (orders) experience and allows it being._ It must be added that, when consciousness is, it seems to be individualized by what it knows. But on another (higher) level the __s_ in the question has still to be questioned, and so the low-level (and logical) answer is only a conventional makeshift, a conventional view, nothing more. And this qualification applies not only to logically inductive and deductive statements necessitating use of the word __s,_ but also to descriptive statements that appear in __ogical_ form, using that term, or any equivalent.
The so-called seven colours of the spectrum together go to make up what is known as light _ what, in other words, the scientists say is no more than a mere fractional band in the whole range of electro-magnetic waves_ the only section of the wave-range which the visual sense can directly grasp. Indeed each colour is experienced as a particular limitation of light: light itself appears to be a particular limitation of the electro- magnetic wave-range. So would the five senses seem to be five specific limitations of the infinite_ five exclusive ways of screening off, of shutting out the rest. In fact, the "outer world", as known through the senses, seems to be conditioned by _ shall one say our knowledge of it depends on __he limiting and sifting qualities of our five senses. By means of sifting and excluding, form could be said to be created from Chaos and thus our five senses are at the same time five creators and five ways of being partially blind. We live, as it were, in a cathedral with stained windows whose, to us, magnificent colour patterns let in a little of the light which the sun sheds indiscriminately outside. (1947)(Later addition:) But the "sun" would then stand for Chaos in our simile and how would that be wrong?
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The so-called seven colours of the spectrum together go to make up what is known as light _ what, in other words, the scientists say is no more than a mere fractional band in the whole range of electro-magnetic waves_ the only section of the wave-range which the visual sense can directly grasp. Indeed each colour is experienced as a particular limitation of light: light itself appears to be a particular limitation of the electro- magnetic wave-range. So would the five senses seem to be five specific limitations of the infinite_ five exclusive ways of screening off, of shutting out the rest. In fact, the "outer world", as known through the senses, seems to be conditioned by _ shall one say our knowledge of it depends on __he limiting and sifting qualities of our five senses. By means of sifting and excluding, form could be said to be created from Chaos and thus our five senses are at the same time five creators and five ways of being partially blind. We live, as it were, in a cathedral with stained windows whose, to us, magnificent colour patterns let in a little of the light which the sun sheds indiscriminately outside. (1947)(Later addition:) But the "sun" would then stand for Chaos in our simile and how would that be wrong?
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