The Purpose of Consciousness II

 When Democritus postulated the theory of atoms, then atoms became a real idea about how matter might be constituted. When atoms were discovered to be a real, objective substance, then the scientific definition of atoms expanded the reality of the human race, but all of Democritus' wrong ideas about how atoms are constructed were usefully discarded from the broadened reality as being equal to the idea of nothing. The idea of nothing is a useful idea and is therefore real. This means that Democritus' true idea about the possible existence of atoms, and his false ideas about atoms were both useful and therefore real. His true idea about atoms expanded human reality, and his false ideas were usefully discarded from the expansion of human reality. This fact makes all ideas real because consciousness makes all of its ideas useful. When scientists discovered that aether in space does not exist, they judged that this idea that is true only as an idea became equal to the idea of nothing so that it could be usefully discarded from a broadened human reality as an objective substance. Yet, the true idea that aether now equals the idea of nothing remains in human consciousness as a reality. When the idea of aether was in its speculative form it was real as a possible substance, but even its possibility was real as an idea.

If humans are to be intelligent and make progress in its expansion of reality, then humans must learn the difference between real ideas that mean nothing and can be usefully discarded, and real ideas that humans can use to expand reality and use to invent systems that broaden human knowledge and benefit humanity. All of this put together means that any idea or feeling or sense object that comes into human consciousness has to be real because they all must either be useful for the expansion of reality, or they must be useful in that they can be discarded from an expansion of reality as being equal to nothing. One may object that humans can think of nonsense words that are not real. But all nonsense words only equal the real idea of nothing which is a useful and real idea that can enhance the expansion of reality.

Everything that humans can experience happens to be useful to humans. Useful sense objects and thought objects can be formulated into useful systems. Humans can also use the real idea of nothing to exclude from an expanded reality all sense objects and thought objects that prove to be useless and therefore equal to the idea of nothing. In order to be intelligent and to be able to use that intelligence to expand human reality, humans have to know the difference between ideas and sense objects that are useful for the formulation of useful systems and ideas and sense objects that are useless and equal to the real and useful idea of nothing. But even useless ideas and sense objects must be real because humans can know, or discover, that they can be usefully discarded from an expansion of human reality. It is quite impossible for any human to experience or imagine any idea, feeling, or sense object that is not real.

Some contend that everything could be an illusion. But even if everything were an illusion, there can still be no doubt that consciousness would be that which is conscious of this illusion. Therefore consciousness would have to be the only real entity. If everything were an illusion, then the brain itself would be an illusion. If so, then consciousness would have to be something entirely separate from the brain. But such a condition would also mean that if everything were real, then it could only be consciousness that makes it all real. This condition also means that everything of which consciousness can be conscious must either be an illusion or be real. There can be no mixture of reality with unreality.