CONSCIOUSNESS AND NOTHINGNESS

                             CONSCIOUSNESS AND NOTHINGNESS


How much does a dead body know? Absolutely nothing. A body can only know if it is alive and conscious. The knowing part of the body either departs the body after death or it vanishes. In either case, all must agree that a dead body knows absolutely nothing. A dead body has no awareness whatsoever of time and space. Time does not pass and space does not exist. A dead body even knows nothing about nothing. It absolutely knows nothing at all.

What about a whole universe composed of lifeless matter and energy? Consciousness does not inhere in lifeless matter and energy. Would not such a universe be in the same condition as a dead human body? In such a universe, time could not pass and space could not exist. Even nothingness could not exist in such a universe. This universe could only be equal to absolute nothingness.

One might object that one can imagine such a universe with space and passing through time. Yes, but then such a universe would not be a consciousless one. The consciousness of this imagined universe would reside in the mind of the one imagining it. The mind of the person imagining it gives time and space to it. One can only get an accurate view of a universe composed only of lifeless matter and energy if one refrains from imagining it; if one abstains from lending one's mind to it. In such a case, the only accurate view of such a universe would be one of absolute nothingness.

The physicists who study quantum mechanics have discovered that elementary particles, such as electrons, exist simultaneously as both a wave function and a particle until measured by a conscious person. By the way it is measured, consciousness can cause an electron to become either a wave or a particle.

Does not this same condition exist for time and space? Time is measured in seconds or hours or years by consciousness alone. Time that is not measured is no time at all. A unit of space, no matter how large or small, must be measured by consciousness to be space.

One might object that a person can look through a telescope and see that the universe is billions of years old, and therefore, the universe must have passed through time and space prior to the emergence of consciousness to observe it. Yes, but then one must assume that our universe was consciousless before the time that consciousness observed it. If a dead body holds no consciousness, and therefore, knows absolutely nothing; and lifeless matter also holds no consciousness, and therefore, knows absolutely nothing, then how could our consciousless universe have passed through billions of years? Furthermore, if quantum mechanics has demonstrated that our universe needs consciousness to determine the difference between matter and energy, then how could our universe ever have been a consciousless one? It seems more reasonable to assume that our universe possessed a consciousness prior to human observation. This assumption would better account for the existence of space and the passage of time before human observation. This consciousness could only be the mind of God.