All appearances are known to consciousness as they actually exist. In other words, as the comedian Flip Wilson so aptly put it: "What you see is what you get." Some philosophers have postulated that the unknown can be real, and that some known things can be unreal. This hypothesis is completely illogical. Only the known and useful can be real, and all unknown entities are completely useless and unnecessary.
Only consciousness can establish reality. Consciousness begins its construction of reality by its objectification of basic realities such as: "time," "space," "hard," "red," and so forth. Basic realities isolated to the mind such as: "will," "intuition," "imagination," and even "consciousness" itself are just as real as are the basic realities derived from sensory perception. If the mind can objectify it, then whatever "it" is, is real. All inner and outer basic realities are real because they all are useful. All basic realities have proven useful and real to consciousness because consciousness holds the power to combine them into systems that produce useful or useless effects. But even useless effects prove useful because they identify those useless systems that consciousness needs to discard.
Those combinations that produce useless effects relate to the unknown. Useless systems produce nothing. The unknown is equivalent to nothing, and so is uselessness. The unknown and uselessness alike constitute unreality. Consciousness cannot recognize unreality. Unreality lies completely outside the scope of consciousness. Consciousness can only indirectly recognize the nonexistence of unreality by its use of the real basic reality called the "idea of nothing." The "idea of nothing" simply points to unreality.
For example, Thomas Edison used many basic realities in his attempts to invent the system called "the light bulb." Even though all of these systems comprised real basic realities, most of these systems did not work. They produced nothing of the desired result. Every basic part of every one of these ineffective systems was real including the nothingness thus produced. But this nothingness also indicated an unreality that Edison never experienced. Yet, every useless system also proved useful in that Edison knew to discard them.
Therefore, all inner and outer basic realities, and their useful combinations are real because they all are useful. Useless combinations are also useful and real to the extent that the mind knows to discard them. Consciousness has been geared to recognize only reality. Consciousness cannot recognize unreality except indirectly by the use of the "idea of nothing."
Ideas are the tools of reason whereby consciousness possesses the power to identify, separate and objectify each basic reality as being exactly that which it is. Ideas indicate the powers of the mind to create information. Information makes intelligence and communication possible. This means that both particulars and universals are real and useful ideas to consciousness. Consciousness happens to be the only known power that can create reality.
An indistinct feeling which one cannot name supplies an example of an appearance which has not yet been formed into an idea. A feeling identified as an idea in one language sometimes cannot be directly translated into a meaningful idea in another language because that language lacks that idea.
Some philosophers contend that an external reality exists independent of consciousness. This cannot be true if consciousness is the only known power that creates reality. However, a potential reality can exist outside of consciousness.
For example, take the basic reality and idea called "hardness." "Hardness" cannot be "hardness" until it becomes a "felt hardness." A "felt hardness" requires consciousness. An "unfelt hardness " falls back to the useless and unknown. As long as it remains useless and unknown, its existence equals its nonexistence. Its existence cannot be separated from its nonexistence. It is not real.
However, at some time in the future, an "unfelt hardness" may become a "felt hardness." Only at the moment that it becomes a "felt hardness" can it become real. This means that an "unfelt hardness" possesses the potentiality to become real even though its existence equals its nonexistence. An "unfelt hardness" that never becomes "felt" remains unreal forever.
For all these reasons, the unknown can never be real. Only the known can be real. This means that if our universe were an unknown universe before the emergence of man's consciousness, then man's consciousness could never have emerged because the equivalence of existence and nonexistence would have continuously vitiated all possible creativity. In other words, in the absence of consciousness, it is quite impossible for reality to emerge from unreality. This means that prior to man's existence, an Infinite Consciousness had to exist, and still exists, who has created all of reality.
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