Truer words were never written than when Jean Paul Sartre wrote that: "All consciousness is consciousness of something." Every individual "something" of which consciousness can be conscious must be real because they all have proven to be useful to consciousness. Even "nothing" is useful to consciousness as an idea. Every object and every idea is useful and real to consciousness.
Should anyone doubt the reality of these statements, one can perform an experiment which will tend to show that they are true. If one reads any page of a dictionary one will find that every word on that page never fails to indicate something useful. Even words that equal nothing such as "aether" or "ghost" prove useful as an indicator of that which is useless and should thus be discarded.
All real "somethings" can be combined into false combinations that effect "nothing" and are therefore useless. The idea of "nothing" is a useful "something" that indicates where uselessness resides. This makes the idea of "nothing" and "uselessness" equal to each other and this knowledge is useful.
In addition, "uselessness" and "nothing" also point to an unreality of which consciousness cannot be conscious. This happens because if one mentally subtracts all of the useful "somethings" from any false combination, including the idea of "nothing," then one is left with only a kind of "absolute nothingness" which seems to be nowhere and at no time. Thus, consciousness can only be conscious of the useful "somethings," including the idea of "nothing" being "something" as a useful idea, that constitute reality. Consciousness can never be conscious of unreality except to the extent that it is indicated by the idea of "nothing." Therefore, all of the "somethings" of which consciousness can be conscious, whether abstract or concrete, must of necessity be real. In fact, it is impossible for consciousness to be directly conscious of unreality. Consciousness can only be conscious of reality.
When one examines consciousness itself, one finds that consciousness always directs itself toward its object, whether abstract or concrete. An abstract idea is just as much an object of consciousness as is a solid object that is felt. This fact makes all abstract ideas real because they all are useful.
The materialists maintain that consciousness is nothing more than brain activity. Yet, this consciousness can direct itself toward a consciousness of this brain activity. Since consciousness always directs itself toward its object, then brain activity can be an object of consciousness. This indicates that consciousness itself holds a useful power that can direct itself toward that very object that produces it. Consciousness is a useful and real separate power within itself.
The materialists may counter this argument by asserting that brain activity can be conscious of itself. Yet, by this argument they unconsciously admit that brain activity produces a consciousness which holds the power within itself to be conscious of brain activity.
So what exactly is this consciousness? All we seem to know about it is that it is a kind of invisible vapor that holds a useful power within itself to be aware of all reality. If consciousness can only be conscious of reality, then the usefulness of this invisible vapor must prove that it holds a separate reality. In addition, this separate reality also holds the power within itself to be conscious of consciousness itself. But this fact, in turn, only proves that consciousness can be conscious of itself being conscious of itself. This process could go on to infinity except that finite consciousness finds it impossible to carry this effort to infinity.
This self-consciousness that tends to reach toward infinity may show that humans possess a "spirit" that yearns to be reconnected to infinity. The usefulness of the idea of "infinity" tends to indicate the real existence of an Infinite Consciousness because a reality had to have existed prior to human reality. Humans possess a spirit that yearns to be reconnected to God. God Himself has provided the possibility of such a reconnection through the death, burial and resurrection of His Son.
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