consciousness from the divergent perspective.

picture one grain of sand on a beach.
this grain of sand is responsible for overlooking all of the others.
each grain appears the same to the naked eye
but in reality varies greatly under the scrutiny of an eye behind a microscope.

if this one grain of sand is to be the source for all singularity -- the house of active consciousness and the soul -- then the purpose of the other grains are to be passive observers.

if we are to successfully study consciousness, how can we expect to find the answer in observing ourselves observing ourselves? if the one grain of sand is the singular ultimate observer than who is observing the observer?

consciousness really is like a set of footprints on the beach trying to retrace themselves.

it's a paradox that is difficult to overcome even when trying to employ analogies. it leads me to believe that cartesian materialism is flawed. it's highly unlikely that the processing of sensory information happens in one specific place in the brain.


instead of taking the 'one grain of sand approach', perhaps consciousness occurs more along the lines of the people who attend the beach, not the grains of sand themselves. the people who attend the beach have personal agenda's -- which could be equated with the bodies separate senses. each sense reaches the brain at different times and is therefore 'moved' or processed at different times. this means that consciousness can no longer be seen as a singularity but a culmination of sensory experiences that move along a busy highway that is constantly moving. the mazda (smell) will reach it's turn off quicker than the BMW (sight). this doesn't necessarily mean that they must share the same end point. no 'observer' has to watch over each vehicle and their destinations for events to occur.

to think about consciousness as a divergent process rather than convergent one (cartesian theatre) will do us much justice into furthering understanding it. converging sensory experiences just leads us to pigeon hole ourselves into paradox. to think about consciousness in the first place is the first step towards failure since it entails us thinking about ourselves thinking. this is the convergent rabbit hole. the fact that consciousness is a time based phenomenon, implies that every experience we had would have to end up in the same place at the same time (when the light hit the movie screen) and this is an unrealistic ideal. the divergent view implies that experiences are internalized after perception and 'merge' onto the superhighway of neurons in our brain destined for specific places (occipital, temporal, frontal centers etc.) this means that conscious experience can happen more freely within the time matrix.

the view that all brain centres must coalesce into one singular experience is a dated perspective. reductionism has led us to look for answers in the wrong places.
what we experience as the outside world lies the short end of a funnel, and at the other end, the mind receives the large end. the mind is a large canvas on it's own and is continually being splashed with existence and time is what continually clears the canvas readying it for new experiences.