CONSCIOUSNESS-IN-ITSELF
Consider consciousness-in-itself; that is, consciousness in a void. Such a consciousness could be conscious of only nothing, and not even nothing. Such a consciousness would be absolutely unconscious.
With absolutely nothing present to such a consciousness, at best, it can only be described as potential consciousness. The most that can be said about a potential consciousness is that it is completely empty. It is as empty as the void that contains it. Thus, it is equal to the void.
Consider the hypothetical idea that a potential consciousness exists. Suppose that, somehow, it gained the potency to concentrate on an object presented to it. Immediately, one can see that, to the same extent that it has concentrated on the object, the consciousness has separated itself from the void.
Jean Paul Sartre said, "All consciousness is consciousness of something". When a potential consciousness focuses on an object, then that consciousness and its object become more than a void. The consciousness is doing what it is supposed to do; that is being conscious of something. At the moment a potential consciousness concentrates on any object or idea, the consciousness changes from a potential consciousness to an active consciousness. It becomes real consciousness.
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