The Purpose of Consciousness III

 The person who lives in a place that does not have birds and horses may not believe that wings or horses exist even if he is told about them. He could have no ideas about wings and horses until he is told about them. But even though he may disbelieve in them, he nevertheless acquires wings and horses as real ideas when he is told about them. He uses his real idea of nothing to exclude wings and horses from his ignorant reality, but he can still imagine a winged horse. His ideas of wings and horses becomes real to him even if he does not believe that they exist because he can use those ideas to imagine a winged horse. Later, when he has been taken to a place where birds and horses exist, and he learns that wings and horses are real sense objects, then his consciousness and his reality becomes expanded. But when he also learns that winged horses do not exist, he actually learns that real wings and horses do not exist in combination with each other. But he never acquires any idea of the non-existence of winged horses. He only uses his real idea of nothing to obtain the idea that real wings and real horses cannot be combined in reality, which is something quite different.

Mistaken combinations of real ideas are never unreal outside reality. They are always mistaken combinations within reality. Consciousness has to be real whether it happens to be conscious of reality or illusions because illusions always comprise real ideas or sense objects. It makes no sense that a real consciousness could ever directly experience any illusion except as it uses its real idea of nothing to indirectly reveal that illusions always comprise real ideas or sense objects. All mistakes, misapprehensions, miscalculations, lies, hallucinations, or optical illusions, when analyzed, will always be shown to comprise real ideas and/or sense objects. A real consciousness can only be conscious of reality. It would not be able to be directly conscious of anything that is unreal.

When Democritus proposed his idea of atoms, that idea became real as an idea to all persons who heard about atoms. Some believed that atoms existed, and others did not. But atoms became a real idea in either case. If atoms were later found to not exist, they would still be equal to the real idea of nothing. Much later, when scientists discovered that atoms are real objects, then the consciousness and the reality of the entire human race became expanded. But Democritus also had real ideas about the shapes and functions of atoms that they do not possess. That part of his theory was a false combination of real ideas. Scientists used the real idea of nothing to discard these real ideas from the true mathematical combination that are atoms. When scientists discarded these real ideas in false combination from atoms, then human consciousness and reality became further expanded.

When scientists proposed that "aether" has to exist in space to propagate light through space, then ''aether' became a real, subjective idea in their minds. But when scientists discovered that aether does not exist as a material object, then they used their real and useful idea of nothing to discard that real, subjective idea from an expanded reality. They did not obtain any idea of the non-existence of aether. They still retained this idea. They only equated this idea with the real idea of nothing. The very purpose of consciousness is to establish reality.

Human intelligence depends on its ability to tell the difference between a real something and a real nothing. Human consciousness can use speculation, observation, experimentation, logic, and mathematics to expand its reality. But humans must also use the real and useful idea of nothing to exclude from its expanded reality any real, subjective idea that equals nothing within that expanded reality. In order to expand reality, humans have to know every real idea that must be excluded from an expanded reality. There are no nonexistent ideas, only false combinations of real ideas. Any useless, subjective idea nevertheless becomes useful and real because it will always equal the real idea of nothing.